Moments of Grace - Season Four, Act Five: Secrets and Lies
by Parlanchina
Summary: The sins of the past are deeply buried and they always come back to haunt you, as SSA Grace Pearce knows better than most. There are dark times ahead for her and the team at the BAU, and with a series of child abductions in Georgia, an arsonist terrorising a town, a killer on Spring Break who is more than they seem and the return of a nightmare in Boston it's all hands on deck. AU
1. It Takes One to Know One

**Essential Listening: Over You, by Ingrid Michaelson**

 **0o0**

SSA Doctor Spencer Reid tightened his grip about the waist of SSA Grace Pearce and grumbled something about their boss probably being unhappy with her medical and life choices if she didn't at least let the paramedics check her over.

The way she was moving, she was probably one big bruise – and he hadn't realised the rogue exorcist had managed to choke her, though he knew the fight had turned physical. He and SSA Derek Morgan had tussled with a couple of the mad priest's attendants and he had several bruises of his own to show for it.

"Hotch is busy," she argued, tiredly, her voice catching on the soreness of her injured throat.

Spencer sighed.

He didn't have it in him to argue with her. She was dead on her feet – but she was right, explaining why someone had left injuries inconsistent with their method of attack was asking for trouble. And the team had been in trouble enough for one day. Trusting that if she had internal injuries it would hurt enough for her to tell him – and that the rest of the team would look after SA Emily Prentiss, who was also having the day from hell – he turned her away from the emergency vehicles and led her across the street.

It was a mark of how much the fight with Father Silvano had taken out of her that she didn't even ask where they were going. She just let him shoulder half her weight and allowed him to walk her under the crime scene tape and off into the night. They stopped about a street away at an unpopulated taxi rank and Grace leaned her head against his shoulder.

He glanced at her: bruised and battered, eyes closed against the falling snow, half mad and definitely more trouble than she was worth, she had seldom seemed more peaceful. Though that could be the exhaustion talking. For a moment, he allowed his own eyes to close, enjoying her warmth and her proximity. Their friendship – and those parts of it that were more than that – had more closely resembled a train wreck than anything healthy for several months. It felt good to just be quiet with one another again, and physically close, even if they'd both had to take a beating to get to this point.

Abruptly, she twisted, burying her face into the thick woollen fabric of his coat.

 _She's crying_ , he realised, holding her marginally tighter. _But about what? About this? Unlikely…_

 _About me?_

Spencer swallowed and stifled a sigh. If it was about him – about them… But then, why should it be? They had both made it clear there was nothing doing, now. While they might be able to be friends (which they had already proved, time and again), they were never going to be as effortlessly close as they had before. He missed the simplicity of their 'frienlationship' (as Garcia had tipsily referred to it when he'd walked her home from a bar) like an ache in his chest.

Grace hadn't moved, her face still buried against his shoulder. She was shaking slightly. He toyed with the idea of rubbing her back, telling her everything would be alright, but what could he say to her? He felt the same way about the walls that had grown up between them – even being this close to her made him feel hollow and dangerously empty. But that couldn't be helped.

 _You and me, Grace – we're not – this isn't… None of this is a good idea_ , he thought, fighting the urge to wrap his arms around her and press a kiss into her snow-sodden hair. Wistfully, he remembered waking up beside her, an arm curled lazily about her, his nose in her neck. That smile on her face when she woke. It had just felt so _right_ – and yet…

 _Even when we try not to, we just hurt each other. Arm's length is just how it's going to have to be._

So instead, he watching the snowflakes carry their little forests of ice to the ground, focussing on keeping his breathing steady and even, refusing to acknowledge the prickle he felt behind his own eyes.

It seemed to take forever for a taxi to pull up, like he and Grace were a little warm island in the thickly falling spring snow, but just when he was about to give in and pull her closer, the twin beams of headlights cut across the street, illuminating the swirls of snowflakes.

"The cab's here," he said, amazed that his voice sounded so normal, and ignored the way she tried to pretend it was snow she was rubbing off her cheeks, rather than tears.

"Hey, man, if she's drunk, you can't get in," said the driver, leaning over the back as Spencer helped her in.

"She got hit by a car," Spencer lied. Well, that's what she had said it felt like, at least. "We – uh – we were just heading back from the doctor's office, but our car broke down."

"Oh man, sorry. That's a rough break. You okay, honey?"

He could feel her eyes on him, even as he walked around the car to get in. It wasn't like him to bend the truth – but then, he didn't fancy their chances of finding another cab in weather like this. It wasn't like she actually _had_ been drinking, and her injuries had been sustained while saving someone's life, after all.

"I've had better days," she said wearily, as Spencer slid into the seat beside her and gave the cabbie her address.

"Good job you got someone lookin' out for you," he said. "I'll try to make the ride as smooth as I can."

"Thanks," said Spencer, already missing the warmth of having her tucked into his side.

It was all he could do not to reach over and take her hand, so instead he turned to stare out of the window, away from Grace.

The forty-five minutes it took to get to Apple Tree Lane passed in silence. Spencer couldn't decide which was worse: the fact that they might talk about the hideous mess they had made of things, or that they never would.

 _We never do, when it's important_ …

The cab driver, to their very great surprise, refused to let them pay him, stating that the fare counted as his good deed for the week, and drove off before either of them could protest.

"Well, it looks like chivalry isn't dead," Grace joked, and then coughed.

Her voice sounded choked and painful, and Spencer couldn't help but put his arm around her again. Firmly, he told himself it was because she needed the support.

"Come on," he said, as she leaned into him. "You don't wanna slip..."

He saw her all the way inside, into the kitchen he had spent so much time in, before… Before Vegas and frayed tempers, and _that_ poorly considered accusation and _that_ punch.

"Are you gonna be okay?" he asked, a little brusquely.

He had to get out of here before he did something they would both regret.

"Yeah, I'll be fine," she lied, and he could hear it in her voice. "You know me."

He did – and himself; that was why he had to go. He nodded and made to leave.

"You could –" she began, and he turned back. "You could always stay," she said, looking up at him.

Shocked, he stared at her, a deep frown on his face.

 _Yes, I could do that – I could, but…_

He could see, now she had pulled off her scarf, the dark purple bruises forming at her throat. She looked dangerously vulnerable, though some of her usual strength was there. If it hadn't been, she probably would have been on the floor by now. It did something complicated to his heart, seeing that look in her eyes.

 _Bad idea_ , Spencer thought. _Better turn her down – better get out of here. Better do it fast._

But his feet were rooted to the spot.

When he didn't answer, she tried again. "I was thinking I'd order takeout." She swallowed. "Maybe that Thai place… You could join me – if you like? My shout."

It was all he could do not to kiss her. He swallowed.

 _I can't,_ he thought. _Just tell her no and good night, and get out of here, before it's too late…_

"Okay," he said aloud. "That sounds – Thai food sounds… perfect."

He knew he had made the right decision as soon as the corners of her mouth quirked upwards. Some of the heaviness she had been carrying with her seemed to lift – and with it went some of his own.

"Great, I'll grab the menu," she said. Then she tried to take her coat off and grimaced.

"Here," he found himself saying.

As gently as he could, he helped her out of her damp, half-frozen coat and hung it on a peg by the front door to dry.

 _Her hands are so cold._

"Thanks," she said. "And, um – make yourself at home. I mean, you know where everything is."

He did. He peeled off his own coat and followed her into the kitchen, feeling far less bashful and self-conscious as he thought he might, if he ever set foot in here again. It was just the way he remembered it, as if he hadn't stopped visiting all those months ago, and the place had always been a part of the fabric of his life.

Spencer filled the kettle while she recovered the takeout menus, still moving rather stiffly.

"Peppermint or chamomile?" he asked, trying not to watch her too closely.

"Oh, you're a lifesaver, Spencer. Peppermint – or I'll be asleep before the food arrives."

He nodded, thinking that this was probably quite true, and pulled two mugs out of the cupboard so he could join her. They had a brief discussion about whether to get Pad Thai or Gra Pao – deciding to share both – then Grace went upstairs to change into something less frozen.

Spencer wandered into the room that was full of books and looked out into the garden. The snow was falling thick and fast, now, and it was very pleasant to be inside with a hot drink and not outside. And with company – no, a friend.

He glanced towards the stairs. _Maybe more._

He wondered whether she, too, felt the sea change in their relationship; it was like they were on the very edge of something tonight, and while he thought it probably ought to make him feel uneasy, instead he felt something closer to hope.

They _were_ trouble though – and they both knew which of each other's buttons to press – but maybe together they could find a way to function better than they did alone. For the first time in a long time, Spencer allowed himself to dwell on what they had had – whatever that was. He still wasn't sure how to define it, or them, or her, but perhaps that didn't matter. He _did_ know that when they had been togetherish it had been the happiest he had ever felt. It had taken longer than he could have imagined to admit to himself that he wanted that again.

Spencer's lips curled into a soft smile, remembering the way she had defeated every last rule he had about not wanting to touch people until it felt weird _not_ to be. His mind dwelling on kissing strange British women in hot parking lots, he almost missed her calling down to him from upstairs.

"Hey, I think you left some of your things over, back when – back in –" She stopped and then carried on, tiredly, "Anyway, if your clothes are as snowy as mine were, they're in the spare room still."

"Thanks," he said, leaving his tea on the table and heading up, glad now he had been too angry to pick them up back in the autumn.

 _And this was the winter of our discontent_ , he mused, gratefully pulling on warmer, drier clothes.

He glanced in the mirror, recalling how he had left an old college shirt from Cal Tech and some ancient jeans in the drawer in Grace's spare room after a particularly muddy foray in her garden last summer had meant walking home and back before lunch.

Spencer frowned, pushing damp hair behind his ear. It was funny, he had spent so long avoiding thinking about Grace he had almost forgotten how near one another they lived.

She had lit the fire by the time he got back downstairs, and curled up in an armchair in her pyjamas. He paused in the doorway and smiled at the familiarity of the scene. It just felt so right.

"I missed this," he said, and then went to reclaim his mug, embarrassed that he'd spoken aloud.

Feeling a light pressure on the crook of his arm, he stopped; Grace was looking up at him, her hand still resting on his arm where she'd caught him. "I missed this, too," she said quietly. "Spencer…"

His pulse jumping at her proximity, he allowed himself to be drawn onto the couch beside her. Grace slid her fingers up his bare arm and entwined them with his, the contact making him shiver with a mixture of cold and the memory of contentment.

Spencer licked his lips. "I – uh…"

Whatever he had been about to say – and honestly, he had had no real idea what was about to fall out of his mouth – evaporated entirely when Grace's other hand landed lightly on his chest.

"Let's – let's not do the over-thinking, talking thing," she said. "We're both rubbish at it, and it only gets us in trouble."

Spencer laughed, though only a little. He couldn't take his eyes off hers.

"True," he managed to say, despite the cacophony in his chest. He swallowed. There was so much he wanted to tell her – but she was right. Maybe just this once they could get away without their words messing things up. "Um…"

He sucked in a breath in surprise as the hand that had been on his chest moved gently over to the bruise above his eye.

"He clocked you pretty well, didn't he?" she asked, softly.

"I guess," he said, trying to resist the delicate sensation of her fingers grazing across the area. "I think you came out worse, though," he added, and then gave in, letting his eyelids flutter closed and leaning into her hand.

Opening them again, he touched the collar of her pyjama top, brushing his thumb over the blush of purple there. Silvano must have really been trying to kill her, he mused. Good job she was more than a match for him…

He bit his lip. Even bruised and exhausted, wearing an ancient Garfield shirt and fluffy PJ bottoms, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Without quite meaning to, he reached up and tucked a lock of her honey coloured hair behind her ear.

"Grace…" he began, but then she bit her lip too, and he was lost.

The kiss was soft and delicate, like the barest touch of a feather. Spencer pulled away, suddenly worried that they were on vastly different pages of the weird, convoluted book of their relationship, but Grace was wearing that easy, sweet smile again and his heart turned over in his chest. When he leaned back in he could feel the curve of her smile, pressed against his.

 _If I could just stay in this moment…_ he thought wistfully, safe and warm and with his arms around the woman he loved.

"I definitely missed _this_ ," she said, and somehow her arms had wound around his neck. Spencer 'mmmed' his agreement, resting his forehead against hers.

He relaxed against her, gently slipping his arms around her waist. She smelled of peppermint and bergamot, with just a hint of that strawberry stuff she put in her hair. Spencer inhaled happily. It felt like home.

Then he frowned. "Do you hear that?" he asked.

"What?" said Grace. "Oh, it's probably just my neighbour's car alarm."

Spencer pulled away, looking around for the source of the noise. "No, it sounds more like – like –"

He turned, and then turned over, and then smacked his alarm clock harder than he needed to; it slid over the edge of his bedside table and onto the floor.

Spencer groaned and lay back, keenly feeling the absence of the madwoman who haunted his dreams. "Like my goddamn alarm clock," he complained aloud, then put his pillow over his head, squashing it over his face in frustration, wishing he could go back to sleep – back to her.

But it was not to be. The dream was already fading, and with it that fleeting sense of contentment – and he had to get up and go to work.

Where Grace would be, distant and cold… because he had said no.

He sighed and made himself get out of bed.

It had been two weeks since the BAU had taken down the dangerous rogue exorcist who had murdered one of Prentiss's old friends and made a run at another, killing two more men besides, and no matter what Spencer did he couldn't get that night – those moments of almost with Grace – out of his head.

He had tried everything he could think of, short of self-hypnosis, from reorganising his kitchen cupboards to wearing himself out chasing after his godson at the waterpark. He had even volunteered to join Morgan for a gruelling run in the woods, and while he had come home and collapsed straight into bed, more physically exhausted than he had been in months, he had still woken with the feel of her skin on his lips.

That time he had dreamt she had gone running with him instead of Morgan… his dream had been an altogether more enjoyable experience than the sweaty, painful, freezing cold reality. It had taken a while for the scent of pine and strawberries to leave him, and he had been incapable of meeting her eyes at work all day.

Spencer brushed his teeth angrily, glaring at himself in the mirror.

Why did he let her get to him like this? It was ridiculous.

Why did she have to ask him to stay?

 _Why didn't you just say yes?_

He glowered at himself and then got in the shower, trying to scrub the question and the possibilities of who might be there with him if he had out of his mind.


	2. Omnivore

**Essential Listening: Black Shuck, by The Darkness**

 **0o0**

Unit Chief SSA Aaron Hotchner pulled up outside the house and turned off the engine. He sat looking up at it for a few moments with mixed emotions.

It was not terribly unusual for an investigator to come to the end of their particular road and want to get in touch with their old friends and colleagues one last time. A couple of years previously Aaron had heard through the law enforcement grapevine that Tom Shaunessy had retired – and then that his health was gripped by that steady decline that came to men who had spent their lives ricocheting from case to horrific case, mollifying their demons with sixty a day and hard liquor.

The way the man had sounded when he had called – breathless and grim – Aaron could well believe that he wasn't long for this world. And Shaunessy knew it.

He had been expecting to hear of his death for several months as work and life ground on around him.

What he hadn't expected, given that he had only worked with the man for a few weeks, ten years earlier, was the deathbed summons. They had got on well enough at the time, and those weeks had been particularly intense, given the case they had been working on at the time – Aaron's first as a lead investigator – but it had been a working relationship, nothing more. Not like the ones he had since developed with his team.

It was a particularly weird request, given that Aaron had had to catch a plane just to pay this visit.

It could be entirely straightforward, he told himself. Just an old man preparing to say farewell.

But, as he got out of the car and jogged up the steps to the front door, he couldn't help feel that it might be more than that. A strange feeling of tension had settled him as soon as he'd left his apartment and begun the several hour journey to South Boston. There were a limited number of reasons people who chased the worst specimens of humanity got this kind of call.

He made an effort to shake it off when he knocked on the door, giving the live-in nurse a smile when she opened it.

Like many in law enforcement, Shaunessy's marriage had suffered from the long hours and mental trauma associated with his calling.

 _Like mine,_ Aaron reminded himself.

"Mr Hotchner?" the nurse asked.

"Hello," he said. "May I come in?"

"Please, he's been expecting you," she said, stepping back to allow him inside.

"Thank you."

"You're the only person he's asked for," she told him, shutting the door behind him. "You must be good friends."

Something uncomfortable settled in the pit of Aaron's stomach.

"Actually, we worked together once, about ten years ago," he explained, frowning.

The nurse nodded, evidently perplexed. "Well, he'll be lucky if he makes it through the night," she said. "Anything you do to ease his pain would be a blessing."

Aaron nodded and followed as she showed him through to the back room that had been converted into a bedroom-cum-sickroom.

Shaunessy was wired up to a breathing tube, shaking feverishly in the armchair beside his medical bed, one hand gripping a medical walking stick like a shield. His commendations were all on the wall around him, along with newspaper clippings from major cases.

No, not cases, Aaron realised, glancing at them. A case.

 _The_ case.

He shook the old man's hand. It felt cold and shaky. "Hi Tom."

"You came," he said, as Aaron took a seat across from him. "Thank you."

"Of course, Tom." He looked at the retired detective closely for a moment before speaking. "I don't know why you asked for me."

"The Reaper," he said simply.

Involuntarily, Aaron glanced at the cuttings on the wall.

 _The one that got away_ , he thought.

"I shut down the investigation without an arrest," said Shaunessy, breathing heavily. "The killings stopped and I sent you away." He sighed. "You deserve to know why."

Something about his tone and the manner of the summons gripped Aaron's heart with sudden fear. This did not sound like an old friend reaching out. This sounded like a man with a guilty conscience.

"Okay," he said aloud. "Tell me."

Shaunessy reached into the drawer of his bedside cabinet. With shaking hands he withdrew a crumpled envelope, the contents of which he removed and passed to Aaron. It had evidently been read and pored over many times.

"A deal with the devil," the old man wheezed.

Aaron felt his blood run cold. If Shaunessy meant what he thought he did…

Carefully, he unfolded the letter and read the typewritten words; a contract with one of the most ferocious serial killers in American history. A mutual agreement to call off the hunt. And at the bottom, the all-seeing eye that The Reaper had left at some of his scenes, drawn roughly in red pencil crayon.

 _Oh God…_

"'If you stop hunting me, I'll stop hunting them'," he read aloud. "'For as long as we both shall live. Till death do us part. If you agree to my terms, take out a personal ad in The Michigan Post.'"

"This is a contract," he said, watching the old man wring his hands.

"Which we both honoured," Shaunessy said sadly. "You know we weren't close to catching him. If it didn't work, I could have restarted the investigation."

He was clutching at straws, trying to assuage his guilt at allowing a serial killer walk away scott-free.

"But it did!" Shaunessy insisted. "The killings stopped. I waited six weeks! Six weeks before I sent you away."

Horrified, Aaron shook his head. "But, Tom, how do you know he stopped?" he asked quietly. "He could have just gone someplace else."

"No!" the retired detective shook his head vehemently. "I've kept watch – I _know_ he stopped!"

Aaron let his eyes drop to the letter in his hands. "Sooner or later, we would have caught a break."

"How many people would he have killed before we caught that break?" Shaunessy snapped, fervently. "Would all those lives be worth it?"

 _But we don't get to take the easy way,_ Aaron thought. _We have to take the right way – we can't cut corners just because we're getting desperate._

"We don't get to make those decisions," he said aloud. "We don't let them get away with it."

Shaunessy looked away and when he looked back his gaze was removed, distant. He nodded.

This was the reason he had asked for Aaron at the end, out of all the people he knew. He was the only one who understood what The Reaper was – and the only one with a shot at making things right.

"Then you'll have to pay for my sin," he said gravely.

"How do you mean?" Aaron asked, confused.

"The contract's about to expire," he explained, nodding at the letter. He patted his own chest, where his body was already betraying him. "I've felt him watching me," he said, looking out of the window to the dark alley that backed onto his home. "He knows. He's been waiting for this."

"You think he's going to start killing again?" Aaron asked, but it wasn't really a question.

Shaunessy shook his head, looking pained. "I did it to save lives!" he exclaimed.

Aaron looked away. _It's not as easy as that…_

"Please… Please tell the victims' families that I'm sorry," the old man pleaded. "Please, tell them… I had no choice."

 _I can't,_ thought Aaron. _Because you did have a choice. There is always a choice._

He frowned, feeling the weight of Shaunessy's burden transferring to him.

"I'll tell them you're sorry," he said, and it was the only comfort he could offer.

Later, back in the car, he wondered whether – faced with the same choice – he would have done the same. But he wouldn't. It wasn't in him. You couldn't make a deal with the devil and call it the right thing to do. There were always consequences.

Aaron drove morosely back to the airport, hoping he had not just been given a glimpse into his own future.

0o0

"Yes, that's right, Aaron Hotchner," said Aaron, into the phone. "Sergeant O'Mara has the number. Thank you."

With any luck, O'Mara would get in touch and they would be able to get the jump on this guy.

But Aaron wasn't a great believer in luck.

He hadn't even bothered going home. Instead he had driven straight to the office, and had been relieved to discover that Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia – their resident electronic wizard – had yet to go home, having spent some of her overtime doing something mysterious and necessary to the team's computers. She had taken the information request with an expression that told him his manner was both grave and a little complex, and hadn't even made a flippant remark.

Aaron had made the short trip back to his office attempting to school his features back to their usual calm, collected state – which had succeeded right up to the point where he had discovered Pearce still at her desk, working on a report that wasn't due for another fortnight. Recognising the signs of someone putting off going back to an empty house, he had checked his watch and ordered her to leave.

He would need all his agents on top form if they were going to have a run at this guy.

Some of the gloom that Garcia had detected must still have been visible on his face because Pearce had tipped her head to one side as she grabbed her coat and subjected him to a penetrating gaze.

"You alright, boss?" she asked, in a manner that suggested she knew that he wasn't, but was presently at a loss to know why.

"I'm fine. Go home – that's an order."

He left her at her desk, giving him a shrewd look that he could feel on the back of his neck all the way back to his office.

He suspected her present malaise was related to the foul mood Reid was currently battling, but he found had reached a point in his life where he no longer had the mental capacity to worry about it. They were both adults and it wasn't currently impeding their work.

And he had bigger things to worry about. And darker.

Garcia was hovering just outside his door when he hung up the phone. He waved her in.

"Come in."

"I think I found it," she said, offering up the sheet of newsprint he had tasked her with tracking down. "Michigan Post, March 7th, 1998. Is that right?"

Among the requests for forgiveness and companionship, she had highlighted the personal ad that had brought the temporary reprieve that was drawing to a close. Aaron huffed.

A part of him had been unwilling to believe the old man, even given how desperate he had seemed. He read it over:

' _I WILL STOP HUNTING YOU IF YOU STOP HUNTING THEM. 'TIL DEATH DO US PART. –T.S.'_

"Yes…"

"Because I found it, do I get to know what it's about?" she asked.

Aaron looked up at her, with her vibrant dress, colourful earrings, bright bow in her flamboyant hair and sunny expression, and for a moment he debated not telling her. In many ways Garcia was still an innocent, despite all the horrors they waded through. Sparing her the knowledge that this fresh storm was looming on their horizon for just another day (it was by no means certain Shaunessy would die right away, after all – sometimes people hung on unexpectedly for years) was tempting.

But he owed her an explanation.

"The Reaper," he said.

Garcia's eyes widened. "Like the… Boston Reaper?"

He nodded as the look of horror grew on her face.

"I didn't even know the BAU worked on that case," she said, with a little gasp.

"1998," he told her. "It was my first case with the BAU as lead profiler."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but we don't have a profile for the Reaper in our system, do we?" Garcia asked.

Aaron turned his attention to the file on the desk, impressed that she had looked it up at some point – though it technically hadn't ever come up before. But there was a limit to what she needed to know. Especially while Tom Shaunessy was still alive.

"That'll be all, Penelope," he said, effectively dismissing her. "You can go home now."

To her credit, she accepted it with reasonably grace (though he noticed her eyes lingering on the print out she had given him). "Okay… Goodnight, sir."

"Goodnight."

0o0

 _Fate is not satisfied with inflicting one calamity._

 _Publilius Syrus_

0o0

SSA Jennifer Jareau knocked on his office door, bearing a slim file.

Aaron tensed.

It had been four days since his late-night trip to South Boston and three since Shaunessy's live-in nurse had called to inform him – as Shaunessy's only visitor – of the old man's death. Every minute since, he had been waiting for the proverbial axe to fall.

"You wanted to know immediately about any unusual Boston homicides?" she asked.

He took the proffered file, opened it at random and felt the shock of horror he had been expecting at the all-seeing eye daubed over the car at a crime scene a few hundred miles away. Closing the file with a snap, he began to gather the other files and picked up the go bag he had left behind the desk.

"We're going to Boston," he announced, and JJ gaped at him.

"What?" she asked, following him. "Shouldn't we wait for the official request?"

He didn't respond, so she tried again.

"We haven't been invited, sir."

He stalked past the desks of the rest of his team, who looked up, gauged his expression and started shutting down their computers, allowing themselves to be caught up in his tailwind.

"We will be."

"Well," said JJ, behind him. "Looks like we're going to Boston."

0o0

It had been a while since any of them had seen Hotch this wired. Usually he was the calmest person in the room unless (and sometimes even then) one of the team was in immediate danger. The moment the seatbelt light had flickered off he had started pacing and they had ignored the kitchenette in favour of absorbing the files. If he was this worked up, there was definitely trouble ahead.

Reading through her file, Grace recalled the look on his face when he had come in late, earlier in the week. A lot of trouble.

Hotch called them all to order simply by coming to a halt. His shadow fell across Grace's file and for a reason she couldn't explain, she shivered and reached for her father's pocket watch. He explained the Shaunnessy situation and all of them groaned.

"The Reaper is driven by a need to dominate, control and manipulate," he said, not even consulting the file in his hand.

"So then why would he offer a deal that would stop him from doing that?" Emily asked.

"Well, killing gave him power," said Hotch. "But after so many, the payoff began to diminish. So he decided to switch tactics."

"He knew he could get more out of controlling Shaunnessy instead, and for longer," Grace mused. "He could hold that over him until the old man died – and he knew he'd take it to his grave."

Hotch nodded. "Offering the deal gave him the ultimate power. Better even than killing. He manipulated the police into voluntarily surrendering."

"Even got it in writing," said Reid.

"Like a trophy," Grace added.

"He won," said JJ. "Why start killing again?"

"Well, because the only person that knew he'd won, the person he made the deal with, just died," SSA Derek Morgan remarked.

"Narcissistic killers need other people to recognise their power," said SSA David Rossi. "That's why they contact the media."

"So, how did he stop for ten years?" Emily asked.

Reid reached for a book he'd picked up at a bookshop outside of Quantico before they'd left. "In _Night of the Reaper_ , the author suggests he had been arrested for an unrelated crime or died."

"Like Jack the Ripper," Grace put in, and he nodded.

"Yeah. Perhaps he's trying to correct that misconception."

JJ shook her head, in wonder. "What has he been doing all this time?"

"Planning what he would do if he started killing again," said Hotch.

Grace bit her lip to try to prevent the shudder that ran through her. Something was wrong here; something was _very_ wrong…

"So, from '95 to '98, he shoots, stabs and bludgeons twenty-one victims," said Morgan, poring over the crime scene photos. "Men. Women. All ages. All types. No specific victimology or MO. How did you build a profile from that?"

"We didn't," said Hotch, and everyone tore their eyes from the files to stare at him.

"Boss?" Grace asked, surprised.

"Shaunessy sent us home before we had the chance," he explained. "BTK, the Zodiac and the Reaper all have similarities. They are all highly intelligent, disciplined, sadistic killers who named themselves in the press."

 _This has been on your mind for some time,_ Grace thought, playing with the winding mechanism on the pocket watch.

"Highly intelligent may be a bit of an understatement," said Reid. "The Reaper and the Zodiac killer have never been arrested, and the BTK was only caught after twenty-five years because he went to press to counter a book that said he'd died, moved away, or been locked up. Just like this one." He waved the paperback again.

"Speaking of the media," said JJ, with pre-emptive weariness, "when this gets out, it's going to be a frenzy." She picked up the letter the Reaper had sent to Shaunessy – the contract. "If they get wind of this, they're going to be all over the Boston Police."

Hotch nodded. "The longer we can float the copycat story, the better chance we'll have of catching him. Rossi, Prentiss and Morgan, go to the field office, set up shop, go through everything there," he instructed. "JJ, Pearce and Reid, we'll go to the crime scene."

He turned to go back to his seat, and probably Grace should have let him, but at times like this she didn't have a great deal of control over what came out of her mouth.

With utter certainty born of years of experience (both occult and procedural), Grace fixed him with a dark stare. "Hotch?" she said, in a tone that made everyone on the jet sit up and listen. He stopped and looked back over his shoulder. "I have a _really_ bad feeling about this."


	3. Erase and Rewind

**Essential Listening: LSF, by Kasabian**

 **0o0**

As expected, the press were all over the tapeline, asking questions, taking an official statement from the detective on the line. They got out of the SUV, the three junior agents hanging back until Hotch had cleared their presence.

JJ shifted from foot to foot, muttering about jurisdiction and invitations.

"But if he's right about this, Jayj," said Reid, in an undertone.

Grace nodded. The detective would let them in – as soon as he saw Shaunessy's letter, he'd know. She ran her eyes across the crowd. It was the standard mix of concerned citizens, ghouls, press and emergency response staff you got at any serious crime scene. The news crews had been corralled further up the road, given that a large part of it was all crime scene, and they were busy posing for their public and taking long-angled shots of the scene, artistically capturing the end of the tape fluttering forlornly in the wind.

Her eyes slid to the left as Reid joined her at the front of the SUV; she could hear JJ on the phone behind them, making sure Garcia was on point.

"Do you think he's here?" he asked, quiet enough that no one else could hear.

Given how many people were out and the secretive nature of their mission, he'd had to lean in to do it and his breath tickled her ear.

"Maybe," she replied, equally quietly. "We know he watched Shaunessy. Little wonder if he's watching the present investigation."

Reid was looking particularly good today, and his proximity wasn't helping, but there was a job to do so she pushed such unhelpful thoughts away and focused instead on the task in hand.

"He might not be able to resist, except –" she began, trying not to dwell on Spencer's goddamn purple shirt.

Spencer finished her thought. "Except the news crews will have this out and on the air for days."

She nodded. "All he has to do is turn on his TV."

"Unless he _is_ press."

Grace pulled a face. "He couldn't do what he does and hold down a job."

"No, not when he's killing all the time," said Reid, "but he's been getting off on power instead of blood for the better part of a decade. He's probably marginally more 'functional' at the moment."

She nodded slowly. "So maybe he's had a job and just left it, anticipating needing some extra time for his hobby," she agreed, following his line of thought. "Or he works freelance."

They were quiet for a bit, half an eye on the crowd, half an eye on Hotch talking to the lead detective, listening to JJ direct operations. Grace had the sense that Reid was uncomfortable, but she had become so used to that feeling in the past few months that she didn't think anything of it until he spoke, leaning closer again.

"Oh the jet…"

Grace nodded minutely, signalling for him to go on.

"When you said you had a bad feeling, it's one of those 'hell is about to literally break loose and there's nothing we can do about it' bad feelings, isn't it?"

He didn't really need to ask. He had probably read as much off her face, like the rest of the team. But unlike the others, he knew that if she said it out loud there was generally something behind it, no matter the grief Morgan and Rossi gave her over her semi-prophetic announcements. And he remembered New York.

She pursed her lips. "Pretty much."

"Great," he complained; she agreed.

"I can't shake the feeling there's an ending here – or the beginning of one. Like we're on the edge of something awful."

"We're always on the edge of something awful," he observed, with rueful but half-hearted amusement.

Grace made an attempt at a chuckle. "That we are."

There was a pause. She became increasingly aware that Spencer was still looking at her, lost in his own train of thought. She met his gaze; he was so close, now, she could see the little flecks of amber in his warm, brown irises.

"Your hair is tickling my neck," she said, without a hint of emotion, and he swallowed hard and backed up very quickly, returning his attention to the crowd.

"Sorry. I'm – sorry."

"It's okay."

Fortunately, perhaps, for both of them, Hotch waved them through the tape.

"What was he thinking?" the detective asked, as they drew near. "This could destroy the department."

"I know. This is SSA Jennifer Jareau, Doctor Spencer Reid and SSA Grace Pearce," said Hotch, introducing them. "Sergeant Mike O'Mara."

"Uh, we're setting up at the field office," JJ told him, in a tone that suggested she didn't want to piss him off with their pre-emptive action. He glanced at Hotch, but didn't comment.

O'Mara met the eyes of the uniformed officer in charge of the scene and sighed, sounding weary beyond his years. "Okay, I'm done here. Give them anything they want." He made the universal sign for 'wrap this thing up' with his hand and nodded at the team. This was their headache now.

"Thank you," said Hotch.

Reid took out the file they had all been reading on the jet as JJ and O'Mara departed – one to manage the press, the other to manage the impending chaos at the station.

"Nina Hale, nineteen, and Evan Harvey, twenty-three," he read aloud as the three of them moved to survey the crime scene proper. "Nina's throat was slashed."

"I was going to say," Grace mused. "That's a heck of a lot of blood."

"She was stabbed forty-six times."

"Jesus."

"Evan was bludgeoned and then shot," Spencer continued. "No shell casings were found."

They all paused to look at the all-seeing eye the Reaper had daubed over the door of the car, presumably in Nina's blood.

"He preferred revolvers," said Hotch, briskly. ".44 Magnum. The younger the female victim, the more time he spends with them. Usually with a knife."

"That's instructive," Grace reasoned. "Particularly with a penetrative weapon. Is there overkill on the other female victims, too?"

"Predominantly," said Hotch. "But sometimes on the men, too."

Grace raised an eyebrow. "Speaks to the level of his rage."

"Tan line on her wrist," Reid said, looking at the crime scene photos, taken before they had removed the corpses. "Probably wearing a watch of some sort."

Hotch tapped Grace on the shoulder, who was crouched beside the car, looking inside at the congealing pools of blood. She met his gaze and he asked her with a quirk of his eyebrow whether there was any useful weirdness at the scene. She shook her head. There wasn't even the whisper of it.

 _Thank god._

Hotch returned his attention to the file for a moment as Reid's comment about the wristwatch sunk in. "Do we have his wallet?" he asked a nearby officer who had been observing them politely for several minutes. Hotch opened it, and then his face gained sharper focus.

Grace got to her feet, expectantly.

"The Reaper took items from each victim and placed them on the next, so as to make sure we knew it was him," Hotch explained. "No corrective lens requirement."

"The glasses aren't his?" Reid asked, surprised.

"He only took glasses from one victim, the ninth," Hotch explained. "We should have found them on the tenth, but we didn't."

"Was the tenth definitely him?" Grace asked. It was unusual for this kind of unsub to break pattern – but then, this guy was all kinds of unusual.

"Without a doubt," Hotch replied, at once.

Reid frowned. "What was so special about the ninth victim?"

"He survived."

0o0

"George Foyet, twenty-eight, was the ninth victim and the only one to survive the Reaper," said Hotch.

They were back at the Police Department, where O'Mara's mild but well-contained panic had provided considerable space and resources for the others to set up shop. By the time Spencer, Pearce and Hotch had rolled in they had a board half up and various officers scurrying to the archives for the original files. O'Mara, as part of the original investigation and the lead detective for the new case, had joined them at the conference table.

There was a sense of impending doom about the whole thing and the tea were very aware that they needed to get ahead of this one as fast as they could. Particularly if the media got wind of Shaunessy's deal.

They surveyed the images of Foyet's wounds, glumly.

"Not for lack of trying," Rossi observed wryly.

"Amanda Bertrand, nineteen, his date for the evening, was not as lucky," Hotch remarked, as the images changed to the gouges the Reaper had carved into her. There was a collective wince. "He likes to attack them inside or near their cars at night on poorly lit, less populated roads."

 _Like Berkowitz,_ Spencer thought.

"Foyet said he approached them pretending to be a lost tourist," O'Mara told them. "In the hospital, we put Foyet with a sketch artist."

He nodded at the screen, where the sketch had appeared.

"The Reaper always uses some sort of ruse to get close to and spend time with his victims," Hotch went on.

"Curiously average," said Grace, leaning forward to get a better look.

"Yeah," Prentiss agreed. "There's bland and there's almost _too_ bland."

"You think he was lying?" O'Mara asked. "I saw that man's wounds, he was not faking."

"Not lying maliciously," Grace assured him. "But sometimes with a big case like this, and that level of trauma, a victim can't remember a thing, but they know what's at risk and they're desperate to help."

"So they make up a false memory, then begin to believe that's what really happened," Morgan added, nodding. "That sketch looks like someone picked out and described the most average features they could think of."

"Let's not exclude it straight away," said Rossi, cautiously. "We've had cases before where unbelievable ID sketches have turned out to closely resemble an unsub."

"And there's nothing to say Mr Average up there can't be a murderer, just because he looks normal," Prentiss agreed.

"Uh, the eye as he depicts it appears to be the Eye of Providence," said Spencer, who preferred to focus on what the unsub had definitely left behind, rather than what he might have. "A symbol adopted by the US Government and incorporated into the Great Seal in 1782 with the words 'annuit coeptis' inscribed beneath. That's Latin for, 'Providence or fate has favoured our undertakings'." He tapped the image in the file on the desk of the word 'FATE' that had been daubed on Foyet and Bertrand's car. "The Reaper seems to see himself as the personification of fate."

"It's almost a god complex," Grace reflected.

His eyes flicking briefly in her direction, Spencer wondered whether there were more esoteric, occult meanings for the Eye, but if there were she wasn't volunteering them.

"So, how did Foyet survive?" Prentiss asked.

Hotch hit a button on his laptop and the main screen began playing the 911 call that had saved the ninth victim's life.

" _911 – what is your emergency?"_

" _I just murdered two more."_

 _A deep voice,_ Spencer thought, making quick notes. _Not distorted, so likely the unsub's own._

" _Excuse me, sir… Did you just say you murdered someone?"_

" _Victims eight and nine."_

 _Unnecessarily sinister. Knows he's playing a game and definitely enjoying it._

" _By a silver Toyota on Riverton, past the Tyson quarry."_

"That call was made from a pay phone about a mile from the crime scene," Spencer recalled, from the file. "EMTs arrived fifteen minutes later. Bertrand was DOA. Foyet barely breathing."

"So, the Reaper made one of these calls after each of his killings, telling the police where to find the bodies?" Prentiss asked.

"Until this one, the ninth," Hotch replied. "If he hadn't made this call, Foyet wouldn't have been found in time. The call saved him."

"So, the Reaper didn't make any 911 calls after this one?" Morgan asked.

Hotch shook his head.

"Looks like he learned his lesson, Prentiss observed, wryly.

"The question is, does he believe Foyet was 'fated' to live, or that he escaped his fate and is now living on borrowed time?" Grace posited. "Where is Foyet, now?"

"I'd be in the wind," said Prentiss.

"I don't know," said Grace, thoughtfully. "This might be just long enough ago for him to have left and come back again, believing he was finally safe."

Spencer nodded.

Across the table, JJ unobtrusively answered her phone. "Yeah?"

"There's a reason he left Foyet's glasses at the last crime scene," said Hotch, holding them up. "Foyet could be in danger."

Prentiss and Morgan both nodded. "We'll find him."

"Uh, Hotch, there's a reporter outside insisting on speaking with you," said JJ. "Roy Colson. He says he knows you."

Spencer looked at Hotch, surprised. Generally, BAU members didn't personally know press unless they were media liaisons, and that was a position Hotch had never filled.

Hotch merely nodded minutely and departed.

JJ shared a worried look with the remaining agents and then headed off to discuss press management with Detective O'Mara.

0o0

Roy was, as Aaron had expected, loitering around outside the front of the Boston Federal Building, checking other news sites on his cell phone and pacing to rid himself of nervous energy. Outside the FBI, Colson was the one person best able to read the signs: he would have suspected the Reaper was back even before the BAU arrived, but seeing Aaron would probably have cemented that suspicion.

He was a good man who had treated the Reaper's victims kindly and fairly in his articles – and in the book Reid had read in the jet – and he remembered what it was like to live through the climate of fear the Reaper created.

He owed the man a conversation, at the very least.

"Roy."

"Agent Hotchner," he greeted him, narrowing his eyes calculatingly as they shook hands. "So, if it's – uh – just a copycat, what are you doing here?"

Aaron allowed him the barest of smiles; he was still a competent, determined journalist. It was good to see – assuming it didn't impinge on their investigation.

"Helping the police catch him," he replied, not giving anything away.

"Is that your story?" asked Roy. "Come on, I wrote the book on this guy. I even sent you a signed copy. I assume you got it."

He was pressing for information, of course, but Aaron had been playing this game for a long time, now, and in the years since he'd first worked the Reaper case he'd picked up a thing or two.

"Officially we have no reason to think that he's anything but a copycat," he told him.

Colson smiled. "Well, how about unofficially?"

Aaron gave him a long look. "What's more important to you, Roy? Getting the story or getting the killer?"

Colson looked appropriately miffed. "You know, I – I uh, I spent time with the families. I – uh – I told the victims' stories. Now, you would know that if you read my book."

 _Yes,_ thought Aaron, _but you wrote that a decade ago and I need to be sure._

He turned to leave, affronted, so Aaron stopped him. "It's a good book, Roy. You treated the victims with respect and you treated us fairly."

"Every dime it made went to the families," Colson told him almost urgently, as if he needed Aaron to know that.

"I know," Aaron admitted. "That's why I came down."

They both nodded, understanding one another.

"The minute I have something that I can say, I'll call you," Aaron promised. They shook hands and Colson handed him his card. "Thanks."

"Well, if it's him, it won't be long," Roy called as he went back inside.

0o0

The white sedan had been daubed in the blood of the latest victims, the Eye of Providence looking up from the hood to the cloudy sky.

"Won't see much here," Grace grumbled to herself.

The earlier scene, where the two younger victims had been murdered, had been buzzing with law enforcement, but paranormally on the quiet side. This scene, where an older couple had been brutally murdered – both inside the car, this time – was the opposite.

Well, almost the opposite. There were sirens and officers busily combing the area, maintaining a line, taking statements, holding back the press, waving forensic technicians through, which was a fair tumult for a quiet evening. That was almost the same.

"He pulled us over – I thought he was a cop. He was dressed like a cop – and I don't break the law. Always better safe than sorry, that's what I say. He took my licence and then he pulled a mask over his head… are you writing this down?" The old man, who Grace had encountered almost the moment she had got out of the car, screaming for the attention of people who simply couldn't see or hear him, gave her such an earnest look.

He had been trying to get them to help his wife, convinced that if she wasn't with him, then she might have somehow survived.

Grace had angled herself away from the majority of onlookers, members of her team included, but there was only so much she could do. "I'm sorry," she said, in an undertone, "I can't do it just yet. There are too many people."

The ghost of the old man swallowed, understanding, then nodded. "Then you'll remember, I expect."

 _At least he knows he's dead_ , she thought.

"I will," she said, and then a thought occurred to her. "Hang on a tick. Reid? Can I borrow you for a minute?"

He wandered over from where he had been inspecting the remains of the man Grace was presently talking to, looking perplexed. "You got something?"

"Something I can't put in a report," she said, and he tensed.

"Okay…"

She led him and the old man off the road and into the bushes, where two agents might look like they were investigating and not interviewing the empty air, and told him briefly about the old man.

"And you want me to... ?" he asked, after looking around in mild fear, in case he might already be able to see him.

"Remember his statement. It could be useful, but –"

"But you can't write it down, got it." He swallowed, looking distinctively uncomfortable. "Um, will it – will it be like last time?"

"Yes," she said. She turned to the old man. "My colleague has an eidetic memory – like a dictaphone, almost." Spencer pulled a face at that, but the old man seemed to understand, so she continued, "I can let him see you for a little while – tell us everything that happened, but quickly. We can't be too obviously away from the scene for too long."

"Yes, ma'am," said the old man, whose upbringing had apparently made him faultlessly polite even in the direst of circumstances.

Hoping it would be covered by their surroundings, she held her hand out for Spencer, and to his credit he moved closer in order to take it as unobtrusively as possible, even as deeply discomfited he was by the situation. She felt the jolt of shock as his eyes adjusted, and heard the hitch in his breath.

Spencer swallowed. "Sir, I – I'm sorry for your… for your loss," he managed.

Solemnly, the elderly spirit nodded, making blood ooze alarmingly from the shotgun wound to his head. Spencer swallowed again.

"Tell us what happened," Grace requested, so he did.

Ten minutes later, after assuring him repeatedly that they would do all they could, that his wife had probably already crossed over and that he would likely find a way to himself (he was already beginning to fade, now that he had told them what he knew), they watched the recently departed Arthur Lanessa trail disconsolately after the EMT who had tried to work on his wife.

"I owe you for that," she murmured, as they pantomimed following a trail that had come to nothing and emerged from the undergrowth.

"Oh yeah, big time," Reid said emphatically. He shook his head as if to clear it; she guessed from the way he was watching the activity around the ambulance that he could still see the old man. "At least we know his ruse is flexible."

"Yes," she said darkly, "and that he enjoys playing the part – as if the anticipation of the kill is almost as big a thrill for him as the kill itself."

"He's using the killings as a sexual release," Spencer reasoned. "And – uh – the ruse isn't just a means of trapping and controlling his victims, i-it's a kind of foreplay."

Grace nodded. "The way he treats his female victims backs that up. He took less time with Diane here than he usually does with his older victims despite Arthur somehow surviving the gunshot long enough for him to get off on her husband's horror."

"He craves power more than anything – that's his release."

They both sighed.

"At least we know Foyet's sketch was reasonably reliable," Grace remarked, going over Arthur Lanessa's description in her mind. "He sounds like a reasonably bland, average person. Not the kind of person whose face you remember."

"And the use of the mask adds to that. Lanessa said he had light brown eyes…"

"Which is not hugely helpful," Grace agreed.

"Uh… how are you going to tell the others?" Spencer asked, glancing at Hotch and Rossi, who were clustered around the car.

"I'll tell Hotch," she said. "But most of it is stuff that can be inferred." She glanced at him. "We cool?" she asked, thinking of the horror that seeing the already dead could elicit in a person.

He hesitated before he replied, which made her wonder if she might have been more specific about the 'we' part, but he shrugged. "I'll let you know at 4 a.m. when I can't sleep."

It was almost a joke. Almost. Once, he might have messaged her and she might have offered him her company, but these days…

She nodded anyway, and they joined Rossi and Hotch by the Lenessas' car. The old man was still there, watching them dissect his and his wife's final moments.

"He left Nina Hale's watch," Hotch observed, looking inside.

"Okay," said Rossi, from the other side. "So, what'd he take?"

"My wedding ring," said the spectre, sadly.

"His wedding ring," Reid echoed, pretending to peer through the window.

"Arthur and Diane Lanessa of Weymouth," said O'Mara. His voice suggested a feeling of defeat had descended over him at this fresh, brutal waste of life and love. "Married thirty-two years. They were coming home from the Elks, where they played bingo twice a week."

 _She won, tonight,_ Grace thought, glancing at Arthur.

"I've got to go make notification," O'Mara said unhappily.

The Lanessa's had had three kids – Arthur had been worried about how this would affect them.

"You want company?" Rossi offered, recognising a fellow officer in need, but O'Mara was shutting himself off now, still badly stung by Shaunessy's betrayal.

The FBI were too much a part of that – having arrived with bad tidings – for him to be easy around them just now.

"I got it," he said, without a backwards glance.

"Looks like he went through her purse," Hotch noted.

"Any idea what he was looking for?" Grace asked, but their boss shook his head.

Thoughtfully, he tipped open the passenger shade and something fell out, fluttering to the floor. He held it up so they could see: it was a photograph of the Lanessa family at a recent event. They looked happy. The Reaper had used his finger to draw the word 'FATE?' over the family in their mother and grandmother's blood.

"He's saying he holds power over all of them," said Grace angrily. "He's changed their fates."

"The question mark is an – um – accusation," Spencer added reluctantly.

"That's for us," said Hotch, an unfamiliar darkness in his voice. "He's saying we had ten years to save them and that these latest ones are on us."

Grace and Spencer exchanged looks. He sounded wounded.

"You got all that from one question mark," Rossi observed drily, recognising the unfamiliar tone. "That's impressive."

"This isn't your fault," said Grace, quietly. "You start believing that and he's got power over you, too."

There was a long moment of silence where nobody looked at one another, where Grace half expected to be snapped at and sent back to the station, but the moment passed and he seemed to accept it.

"I may know him better than I've let on," he said, more calmly, but with no less intensity.

"What does that mean?" Rossi asked.

 _This is the one you couldn't let go of,_ she realised. _It's been ten years and it's never left you._

"It means that there is a profile on the Reaper."

He was looking at his feet now. It was almost as if the responsibility for the unit had shifted to Rossi in that moment. Hotch looked like a chastened child, refusing to meet his elder's eyes. It was unsettling to see him look so vulnerable and uncertain.

"I thought we were called off before we had one," Rossi said.

"We were." Hotch nodded. "I had just started the profile and then he stopped killing, so officially we were done. But this case…"

"You put one together on your own," Spencer realised.

"It stuck with you," Rossi added.

"I kept coming back to it over the years, and I worked on it alone."

"So, you never shared it with anyone?" Rossi asked, surprised.

Hotch waved a hand expansively. "I know I'm always preaching that profiling is a collaborative effort, but this one wasn't." He shook his head, reluctant. "I don't know. I thought maybe if I was wrong I was going to head us in the wrong direction."

Rossi nodded. "But you think you're right?"

Hotch let out a breath and looked at the three of them before responding. "The more I see, the more accurate I think it may be."

"Okay," said Rossi, handing him back the photograph of the Lenassa family. "Then we need to hear it."

0o0

Hotch had brought them together and debriefed them, giving them copies of the profile he had been working on over and over for more than a decade. It had come as something of a surprise to them, given the way he always insisted that they work together or the profile would suffer, but he had to hand it to him, the more they saw of the files, the more they agreed with it.

It was very strange to see Hotch give a profile alone, though, and sit at the back with everyone else. Rossi, as a fellow senior agent, had stepped up – but he was hovering on the side, rather than beside Hotch. It was obvious that this was Hotch's party, so to speak.

Grace couldn't blame him. This was the kind of case that could eat you alive; the one that got away.

"The Reaper fits a profile we refer to as an Omnivore," Hotch began. "Unlike most serial killers, an Omnivore doesn't target a specific victim type. Although he tends to focus on his younger female victims with his knife, he essentially is a predator who will kill anyone.

"Why is he so democratic?" O'Mara asked.

"Because his kills aren't just about his victims," Hotch explained. "He needs recognition. He needs us to know."

"The symbols, the placement of prior victims' possessions on subsequent victims, it's all for us," said Rossi."

O'Mara fixed his gaze on him instead. "Why?"

"Power." Hotch pointed to the now-infamous letter on the board. "The Shaunessy letter is the clearest example of this."

Grace frowned. That's what it would always be called, from now on. The old cop had made a deal with the devil, but with the best of intentions. After a lifetime of impeccable service before and after it, it didn't seem fair.

"He manipulated Tom Shaunessy into literally surrendering to him," Hotch was saying, as if his and Grace's thoughts were running in tandem.

"The burden was too much to bear," said Rossi. "In a very real sense, Tom Shaunessy was the Reaper's twenty-second victim."

There was a strange shift in the room, as if the assembled officers and detectives had suddenly found a way to let their former colleague off the hook for the terrible decision whose consequences they were dealing with today. Suddenly, the air seemed easier to breathe.

 _Good_ , thought Grace. _They'll be more focused._

"Like BTK killer Dennis Rader, the Reaper is extremely disciplined," Hotch explained. "In his everyday life, this will very likely make him so inflexible he can't keep close relationships or work closely with others."

 _They would be too chaotic_ , thought Grace, casting her eyes over her own work colleagues.

"I believe our killer has another interest," said Rossi. "One that may give us the best opportunity to catch him. The Reaper's last victim was an older woman. He killed her quickly with a single shot. The prior, younger victim, he spent more time with and stabbed forty-six times."

Again, it was O'Mara who was moved to ask, "Why?" though he seemed less closed-off than before.

"He pays special attention to his younger, female victims," Hotch told them. "And his weapon of choice with them is the knife, a substitute instrument for bodily penetration. And the younger the victim, the more time and effort he spends."

"I think our guy is a hebophile," said Rossi.

O'Mara frowned. "Hebophile?"

"Someone who's attracted to adolescent post-pubescent children, teenagers," Reid explained, helpfully.

"Look for men with access and authority," Hotch recommended, as Prentiss came in at some speed. "High school teachers, counsellors, coaches and anyone who's been charged with sex crimes against teenage girls in the last ten years." He met Prentiss's gaze. "That's all for now, thank you."


	4. Fall Guy

**Essential listening: Nemesis, by David Gray**

 **0o0**

"Garcia can't find George Foyet," Derek told Hotch and the others when they filed into the little office he and Prentiss had been working in.

" _I've got nothing, sir_ ," Garcia added, as the assembled agents frowned in consternation.

"What do you mean?" Hotch asked.

" _He's gone,"_ Garcia told them. _"I mean, he's completely off the grid and he's gone."_

Hotch's frown deepened. "How is that possible?"

" _Nine months after he was released from the hospital, he – uh – quit his job, sold his car, closed his bank accounts, cancelled his credit cards, cell phone, apartment, everything."_ The frustration was evident in Garcia's voice. _"He has no paper, thus he has no trail. And I can't find him because he's gone."_

"You think it's intentional?" Hotch asked, reading something in the Technical Analyst's tone.

Across the desk, Prentiss met Derek's gaze. Their job had just got a whole lot harder.

" _It's more than that,"_ she explained, _"even dead people stay on the grid for decades. Take it from me, erasing yourself like this – it-it's extremely difficult. It takes commitment."_

 _And motivation_ , thought Derek. _Like the man who stabbed you multiple times never being caught_.

" _Well, you'd have to be willing to cut every tie of everything and everyone you've ever known in your entire life,"_ Penelope continued, clearly wanting them to grasp the enormity of Foyet's life choice. _"It's like… killing yourself."_ There was a pause. _"I gotta say, this is impressive."_

"Well, after what the guy's been through, can you blame him?" Prentiss mused. "Foyet's the only living person who knows what the Reaper looks like and he's still out there."

"But it doesn't change the fact that we still need to find him," Hotch pointed out.

" _I'll keep looking,"_ Garcia promised.

"Garcia, we don't have much time," Hotch reminded her, rather needlessly in Derek's opinion.

She knew the stakes, just as they all did.

" _I know, sir."_

"He would have to completely isolate himself," said Derek. "He's totally alone."

"But how do you cut _all_ ties? You'd have to talk to someone, right?" Prentiss asked.

Derek watched as Hotch's gaze fell on the pulp true crime book Reid had absorbed on the jet. He pulled out a card and his phone.

"Roy, Aaron Hotchner," he said, as soon as the person on the other end picked up. "I need a favour."

0o0

"How did Colson find this guy?"

Dave and Aaron were sitting in an SUV parked a little way up the street from where Roy Colson had told them George Foyet lived.

"He interviewed Foyet extensively for his book," Aaron explained. "They kept in touch."

"They're friends?" Dave asked.

"Sort of," said Aaron. "But Foyet wouldn't give him his phone number. He gave him one of his aliases though."

Dave nodded thoughtfully. 'One of his aliases'… This guy had made disappearing an art form.

Both men frowned as a slight, middle aged man came into view, carrying bags of groceries up the street. There was a slight hitch in his step when he walked and he looked like the trip from the store had taken it out of him.

 _Which is hardly surprising,_ Rossi thought, _given how many times he was stabbed._

"That's him," said Aaron.

They got out of the car and crossed the road to intercept him.

"George Foyet?" Aaron asked, The man looked up, mildly panicked. "It's okay, we're FBI," he assured him, showing him his badge. "This is Agent Rossi, I'm Agent Hotchner. We met once before. Do you remember?"

Foyet ran his eyes over them both suspiciously. "Yeah, I remember." He looked over his shoulder, anxious. "Would you mind if we get off the street, please?"

"Yeah, sure."

Foyet coughed, leading the way to his door. Dave exchanged a speaking look with Aaron. The guy was clearly still hyperaware, paranoid – and with good reason.

His apartment was small and well-ordered, but a little Spartan. Obviously the bolt-hole of someone hiding from the world – or at least one particular person.

"How'd you guys find me?" he asked, putting his groceries down on the countertop.

"Roy Colson," Aaron told him.

Foyet looked up, surprised. "Oh." He picked up a pill bottle and shook one out into his hand – another lasting reminder of the damage the Reaper had done to him. "Well, is this going to take long? Because I really can't be late for work."

"What do you do?" Aaron asked, putting off the inevitable.

Perhaps it was a little genuine curiosity, too. He had known this man, briefly; perhaps it did him good to see a victim holding on, however tenuously.

"I'm a freelance computer specialist for the city," Foyet told them.

"We're sorry to bother you," said Dave. "We'll make it as quick as possible,"

Aaron held out the evidence bag with Foyet's spectacles in, still dotted with Evan Harvey's blood. "Are these yours?"

Dave watched as the blood seemed to drain from Foyet's face.

He took the glasses with trembling fingers. "I knew it wasn't a copycat," he said, horrified. He started to cough in earnest and Dave got him a glass of water while he struggled to his kitchen chair, holding a tissue to his mouth. "Thank you." He took a few, steadying sips. "I'm sorry. I was going to propose to her that night," he said, voice and body language full of grief. "At the restaurant. But I got cold feet. The ring was still in my pocket when he approached us. He said he was lost. He had one of those sightseeing booklets. I was looking at it when he stabbed me."

"Mr Foyet, you don't need to go through this again," Dave told him, feeling wretched to have to put him through what must feel like torture, but he didn't appear to be listening.

"I couldn't move," he said, shaking his head. "I just sat there, bleeding. I watched him kill Mandy. He stabbed her sixty-seven times. Do you know how long it takes to stab someone sixty-seven times?" He was breathing heavily now, evidently distressed. "I never found the ring."

"He should have left your glasses on his next victim," said Aaron, gently. "But he didn't. He held onto them all this time."

Foyet looked up, then away, trying to brush it off. "What, you think he's got some special interest in me?" He picked up the glasses in the evidence bag and put them down again. "I've been living with that possibility for the past eleven years."

"Have you received any strange letter or calls, hang ups?" Dave asked, as Foyet began to pace around the little kitchen, agitated.

"I keep residences under different names," he said. "I move between them randomly. He likes to get you in a car, so I take the bus. Believe me, I've gone to great lengths to make sure that none of the things you've just mentioned ever happen."

He took a gulp of water; his hand was shaking.

"We'll need your other names and residences so we can reach you," Dave told him, handing him his notebook and pen.

"We can take you someplace safe until this is over," said Aaron, seeing the trepidation on Foyet's face.

"No," he said, emphatically. "Boston is my home. It's the one thing I promised I would never let him take from me."

"Then we'll protect you here," Aaron assured him.

Foyet was not convinced. "You can't protect me. Nobody can." He wrote down the information he had requested then passed the book back to Dave, pleading with them to be careful with it.

"It's safe with us," Dave promised.

"He's just a man," said Aaron. "Nothing more.

"Then why can't you catch him?"

0o0

Colson was waiting for them when they got back to the Federal Building in central Boston.

"Hey," he said, waving them over with a manilla envelope. "This was dropped off at my office."

Aaron winced. It was a copy of the Shaunessy letter.

Dave took it and immediately headed inside. "I'll get this to the lab," he said, over his shoulder.

"Are you going to run the story, Roy?" Aaron asked.

"Well, you know, if I don't, he'll just give it to somebody else," he said.

 _True_ , thought Aaron, _but that will take him a little time._

"Maybe, maybe not," he said aloud. "To him you're special. He wants you to know why he stopped."

Roy's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

"You wrote his biography, Roy. Believe me, over the last ten years, he's read those words thousands of times," Aaron explained. "Your book has sustained him. In his mind, nobody knows him better than you do. Nobody cares for him like you."

He paused, thinking back, trying to find something to impress upon this honourable man how badly they needed to keep a lid on that letter. "You remember what it was like here ten years ago on the street? The fear? And that's when people trusted the police. Not this time, not if you tell them about Shaunessy."

Colson looked away, obviously processing; Aaron knew he had him.

"But it's a hell of a story," he added. "Run with it."

Roy shook his head. "I mean, do you have any idea what you're asking me to do?"

"I'm not asking you to do anything," said Aaron, though he was.

"This is – this is the biggest story of my life – and it's mine," he argued. "It's an exclusive."

But his eyes told a different story. Roy Colson wasn't the kind of man to needlessly put others at risk – and Aaron knew it. But the guy was right, this was a career maker kind of story.

"I can offer you full and exclusive access to the FBI's Behavioural Analysis Unit – after we catch him," Aaron proposed.

"Right, if I hold the story," Roy protested

"I didn't say that."

"Full access to the entire unit?" he asked, after a moment.

"Nobody's ever had that," said Aaron.

 _And you know I'll honour my promises, just as I know you'll honour yours._

"I know," he said, looking away again.

He was still uncomfortable with the idea.

"But?"

"But…" he sighed. "I mean, what if you can't catch him?"

 _We will. I will. If it's the last thing I do. I owe everyone in this city that much._

"Well, that's a risk you're gonna have to take."

0o0

It was late.

Late enough that over half the team were already in their rooms and failing to sleep. Some had lingered in the bar, but fewer than usual. There was a sense, with this case, that since Shaunessy had so royally fucked up the original investigation, they couldn't ever be truly off the clock until this one was done with.

The team were tense – probably because he was – and that tension was beginning to show.

Pearce particularly so. Aaron dimly remembered the conversation they had had at Christmas about paying attention when she said something ominous about having a bad feeling and hoped that in this instance her possible prescience would be wholly inaccurate.

He sighed, picking up yet another crime scene photo from the files scattered around him on the bed and wondered whether Foyet and Colson were right.

What if they never caught this guy?

The hotel phone rang, breaking him out of his musings.

That was odd, for a start. The team, his colleagues, the field office, the police department, his brother – Haley – they all knew his cell number and were very unlikely to call the room. Perhaps there was someone downstairs with a message for him.

"Hotchner."

The person on the other end of the line sighed – a deep, breathy sigh – and somehow, Aaron _knew_.

"Who is this?" he asked, putting the file down.

The voice was deep, hoarse – like the one on the 911 calls from eleven years previously. _"If you stop hunting me, I'll stop hunting them."_

Aaron felt his heart rate pick up. There was no point calling Garcia for a track and trace – he would be using a disposable phone, most likely, or a phone booth. The only thing he could do was keep him talking, get him to reveal something about himself – push him, piss him off. Force him to make a mistake.

"You think I'd take that?" he asked, just the right amount of arrogance and disgust in his voice.

" _It's a good deal,"_ said the Reaper.

"I've misjudged you," said Aaron. "I thought you were smarter than this."

" _You should take it,"_ the Reaper growled.

 _Is that really all you have in your deck?_ Aaron wondered.

"Then you've misjudged me," he said aloud.

" _This is your last chance."_

"I don't make deals," said Aaron with a firmness born of decade of experience with people trying to manipulate him – either in the court or in the interrogation room. "I'm the guy who hunts guys like you."

" _There are no guys like me."_

 _Oh, there have been so many,_ he thought. _And there will be more once we're done with you._

"You all think that."

" _You'll regret this."_

 _Probably_ , thought Aaron. _But not as much as Shaunessy regretted taking that deal._

"I'll see you soon," he assured him and hung up.

It wasn't quite a threat, but it might as well have been. He went back to the files, uneasy. The Reaper would want retribution – and though he knew he had to push him, and there was no way he was ever going to make a deal with the devil, Aaron was fully aware that someone else was going to die tonight.

And this time it would be on him.


	5. Expertise

**Essential listening: It's Gettin' Better (Man!), by Oasis**

 **0o0**

Grace woke with the abruptness and adrenaline rush of a sudden attack, though all around her was quiet and still. One hand on the gun on her bedside table, the other up in a readiness that had nothing to do with being armed, she clicked her fingers. The lights came on apparently of their own accord and she scanned her surroundings.

Her hotel room looked exactly the way it had before she had fallen asleep: messy. Files and notes were strewn across the desk, sofa and little table where she had almost passed out before dragging herself to bed. Her dirty clothes were balled up on a chair, next to the wardrobe that contained her go bag and anything clean. The door to the en-suite bathroom was ajar and the light was off. The towel she'd used was hanging over it, still.

Nothing was moving; nothing was out of place.

There wasn't even a missed call on her mobile – though she checked it twice.

She allowed the hand that was on her gun to relax, but sprang out of bed all the same. Even if the threat wasn't immediately to her, it would be foolish to ignore the feeling that the world was about to be upside down.

It hadn't been a nightmare, and she couldn't dismiss it as such; it was simply a deep and certain conviction that something in the waking world was WRONG. The wrongness was like a clarion call in her mind. There would be no way she could get back to sleep now, anyway.

Grace glanced at the clock on the wall as she pulled on her clothes, acknowledging the inappropriate distance past midnight.

A handful of minutes to 3 a.m.

The witching hour.

She scoffed, doing up the laces on her boots with a certain amount of wired resignation, and wondered what it would be like to have a normal life.

0o0

She was in the lobby when Hotch and Rossi came down, just about managing not to pace, agitation rising from every fibre of her being. It was as if all her particles were on high alert – and until she identified the cause there would be no peace for her. Both men's faces were grim and pale as ghosts.

Rossi checked his pace when he spotted her, the question of what she was doing out of bed all over his face, but Hotch simply shot her a piercing and slightly mournful look.

It wasn't an accusation.

Not quite.

His eyes met hers for just a moment: _You knew_ , they seemed to say.

"Should I ask?" Rossi enquired, as she fell into step beside them.

"Probably not," she quipped, one eye on the back of her boss's head. "We get a call?"

"Yes," said Hotch, without turning.

Grace frowned, her eyes sliding to her right, where Rossi was stalking. "Bloodbath?"

He nodded, frowning. "How do you always know?"

Grace shrugged, aware that a lie was a lot less easy to detect if it was non-verbal – particularly when someone as perspicacious as Rossi was distracted by a case and had had about two hours of sleep.

"PD got a call," said Hotch, gruffly.

"Jogger, or someone find some bodies?" Grace asked, aware that how wrong the world felt definitely meant more than one fresh corpse.

"No," said their boss, tightly. " _He_ called it in."

"He?" she asked, but she realised who they meant before the word was fully out of her mouth.

It was Rossi who supplied the name, even so. "The Reaper."

0o0

With a heavy heart, Grace picked her way through the corpses on the night bus, reflecting sadly on the number of lives that the Reaper had destroyed this time – both on the bus and off it. Six people who had been minding their own business, going heading home after a long shift, or heading to it – not to mention the bus driver.

He was slumped over the wheel, his hand hooked over it to display Arthur Lanessa's wedding ring more prominently.

Looking at the number of bullet holes, and the fact that the victims had barely had time to react before they fell, Grace sighed.

"He must have come in here shooting like Dirty Harry," she remarked.

Further down the bus, Rossi grunted his assent. "And then finished them off with his knife."

This was a clear escalation. A car, not a bus – the Reaper was flexing his muscles, showing them the power he had over the city, re-establishing that climate of fear he had thrived upon eleven years before.

He had daubed numbers on the outside of the bus this time, two foot tall grim numerals proclaiming that he was cleverer than the people chasing him. Taunting them; inviting them to compete in a fresh puzzle. Telling them they had already lost.

Alongside them were the words 'NO DEAL'. If that wasn't a direct accusation, she didn't know what was.

The pocket watch her father had given her in her hand, she immersed herself into the world of the in-between for a moment, in case anything useful had remained, but all the victims appeared to have crossed over – or at least, were haunting somewhere else – which was a bit of a relief.

Grace frowned, allowing the world to slip back into focus.

She had expected the bad feeling that had forced her from her bed to fade as soon as she'd seen the crime scene; a prophecy fulfilled, as it were, but it had not.

It was still there, lurking like a shadow among the cooling bodies, the dripping blood and the sense that they had once again failed to prevent a slaughter. She knew what it meant, of course: there was worse coming.

With a sense of helplessness, she turned, watching Hotch talking tersely with an officer, his whole body taut with the burden of leadership in the midst of the present crisis. And with something else.

 _Fate…_ she thought, uneasily.

The bus isn't the focus of the wrongness, she realised, with a jolt. It's Hotch.

Her mouth went dry.

She fought the urge to run out of the bus and fling herself between whatever was coming and her friend, but she was equally aware that this probably wouldn't help. It wasn't here and now – what had woken her was the urgency of the slaughter on the bus, this was a darker, more lingering thing. He needed to be focused – the Reaper had him rattled enough as it was and telling him she thought he was in trouble would help no one.

No, the best thing she could do was help catch this guy as fast and as solidly as possible, then everyone would be out of danger.

She watched Rossi make his way out of the far end of the bus, joining Hotch on the street.

 _And in the meantime, I need to keep an eye on him._

" _Hey, what's going on?"_

Grace frowned, surprised to find her phone in her hand. When had she taken it out? When had she dialled?

" _Grace?"_

Why had she called _him_ , of all people?

Cursing the instinct that had somehow made her phone Spencer in the middle of the night, she tried to think of an excuse. "There's another scene," she said, slowly.

She heard the difference in his voice as he woke himself up properly. _"Where?"_

She told him. "But I think we're pretty much wrapping it up."

" _Does Hotch want us back at the Federal Building?"_ he asked.

"Um – no…"

There was a pause. _"So why did you call me?"_

He didn't sound grumpy – which given the time, he really ought to have – just curious.

"I…" She bit her lip. There wasn't a sensible reason, and she didn't entirely want him to know that, but she was too tired and too weirded out to make anything plausible up.

" _Grace?"_ His voice was softer this time, notes dropping into concern.

"I don't know. Honestly, my phone was in my hand and you answered before I knew what was happening.

Both of them were silent for a short stretch, though they were both saying a lot, even so. _"Does… does this have anything to do with that bad feeling we were talking about?"_

"Yes. No – I don't know." She shook her head as if to clear it.

" _Are… uh – are you okay?"_

"Of course I am."

 _Not even close. I'm really quite frightened and I don't know where to point it._

 _And for some reason I called you._

 _I don't know where to point that, either._

Aware that she had answered too quickly and that even at quarter to four on the windy side of dawn Spencer would be able to read through that, she tried to shrug it off. "Look, I'm sorry. I'm an idiot and somehow my hand called you with no input from my brain."

" _Grace –"_

"I'm sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep, Spencer."

She hung up before he could respond and left the bus.

The air outside was cooler and free of that sickly metallic tang of the blood of seven people mingling on the floor. She stuffed her hands inside her pockets where they couldn't get her in further trouble, and where her pocket watch felt appropriately cold and solid against her fingertips.

"So he left the ring," Rossi was saying. "What'd he take?"

Something about the way both men were holding themselves suggested this was a private conversation. Not wishing to intrude, Grace turned her attention to the side of the bus instead, and those horrid, garish letters.

"Does it matter?" Hotch asked, the tone of defeat in his voice as clear as a bell.

Grace grimaced. This guy had climbed inside Hotch's head good and proper and was still making himself at home. Still, he was unlikely to listen to her – not on this. Better to let Rossi take the lead. They had known one another for more than a decade, and he was brusque and calculating enough to bring Hotch out of this without pushing him over the edge.

Whereas she didn't even seem to be in control of her own hands.

She watched Hotch rub his forehead in the reflection on the bus's windows. He looked exhausted.

 _We'll find a way through this,_ she thought, vehemently. _Just hang in there._

0o0

Dave strode after his old friend with a sense of mild apprehension. It was not like Aaron to act like this. After his admission of defeat he had simply stalked off, taking himself away from the glare of the press, public and other officers and into an alley, leaving Rossi and Pearce behind.

Rossi had glanced at her before taking off after him, but she had simply nodded, telling him she would handle the scene – as long as he handled Hotch. None of the younger agents liked seeing him show weakness, because he didn't like them to see it. Dave understood. Aaron's unflappability was a constant in their world. Without it, things seemed less substantial, somehow, less stable.

 _Time to be the grown up,_ he thought _._

"Hey, what's going on with you?" he asked, catching up.

Hotch slowed, turned, and considered. He wouldn't meet Dave's eyes. "He called me tonight at the hotel and offered me the deal," he admitted.

 _Oh._

"And what did you say?" Rossi asked – though he hardly needed to, given the bodies and the words on the bus.

"I hung up on him," said Aaron, sounding unusually vulnerable and emotional. "And then he does this." Finally he met Dave's eyes; there was hurt there, and guilt. Far more than there ought to be.

 _But God knows how this is going to feel right now._

"So you think this is your fault?" he asked, raising both eyebrows.

 _C'mon man, you know better than this._

Aaron didn't answer at once, only nodded in a slightly helpless way. He was on the verge of tears and both men knew it. "It is," he insisted, like a child who thinks one small act has irrevocably destroyed their world.

Rossi fought the urge to roll his eyes. Every agent felt like this at one time or another, and he wasn't much for hand holding. Not the way Jason Gideon had been. Fine. If he wanted to be defeatist and overdramatic about it…

"Well, here," he said, unclipping his gun. "Use mine. You've convinced me."

Hotch flinched, tried to tell him to stop, but Dave didn't. He was not to blame for the Reaper's bloodlust and he had to make him see that.

"No, no, you hung up on him," he carried on. "You practically killed them yourself."

Hotch put up a hand, but Rossi ignored it and it went to his brow, where it often was when the tidings were dire.

"Go on, get it over with," said Rossi, who knew how to be vicious when he needed to and could trust the long standing friendship he and this man shared to repair any bridges he had to break along the way. "Don't worry about us, we'll get this guy without you."

"Dave, I had ten years to do something about it," he snapped, openly crying.

Rossi refused to budge. "Shaunessy made the deal. The killings stopped. He closed the case and sent the BAU away. For ten years, you worked on other cases. _Active_ cases."

"But I kept coming back to this one. I kept coming back to this profile."

"Hey, I was retired," said Dave. "Should I blame myself for every victim who got killed while I was on my book tour?"

Aaron shook his head, but the tears had stopped and he was listening, and that was all Dave needed.

"Look, if you wanna end up like Shaunessy, like Gideon, blaming yourself for everything, you go ahead," he pressed on, aware he had Aaron's full attention. "But that voice in your head, it's not your conscience, it's your ego. This isn't about us, Aaron. It's about the bad guys. That's why _we_ profile _them_. It's _their_ fault. We're just guys doing a job. And when we stop doing it, someone else will." He waited for that to sink in before adding, "Trust me. I know."

 _I came back and here you all were, and are – pushing me to be a better profiler, helping me up when I fall down. Because we're a team. Your team._

Aaron swallowed and nodded at Dave's sidearm. "You can put that away."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah, it's a little dramatic, don't you think?"

Dave smiled as the other man turned away, pleased he had been able to pull him back from the edge in the way he couldn't for Jason.

"My wife always said I had a flair for the dramatic," he quipped, leaving himself open.

"Which one?" Aaron asked, taking the bait. He was himself again.

"All of them."

They walked in silence for a few beats, then Aaron clapped him on the back. "Thanks."

"Any time."

0o0

Grace waved them over. She had obviously been waiting for them; she and Roy Colson were standing a few feet apart, both gazing at the bus, both making a show of not trying to take the measure of the other.

"Someone to see you, boss."

Aaron watched her go, wondering if he was so transparent that she felt the need to hover nearby – in exactly the way Rossi hadn't. She didn't go far, still keeping them in sight.

 _Probably feels as bad as I do about the bus,_ he reflected, thinking that it was a terrible thing to be able to see disaster on the horizon, but without the ability to discern where, or when, or who it was coming to.

"Colson," he said in greeting. The two men fell into step and he began to lead him away from the bus. "Go ahead and run your story. It won't matter after this."

"Oh, I am," said Colson. "But I'm gonna leave the Shaunessy deal out. I don't think the families need to know. Not at least until you catch him."

Surprised and not a little grateful, Aaron slowed the pace a little. "I appreciate that."

"Foyet called," Roy told him. "He, uh, wants to see me."

"Is he mad that you gave him to us?"

"Nah, I just think he doesn't have anyone to talk to," said Roy. "I mean, the Reaper's killin' him, too. Only… slower."

"He wouldn't be the first," said Aaron, thinking of Shaunessy.

0o0

"Hey, wait up!"

He saw her freeze, then turn, her shoulders set against whatever was coming. She needn't have worried, though. He wasn't about to make this worse.

"Sorry," she said again, but Spencer waved it away.

As soon as Grace had hung up on him he had dressed and taken one of the Yukes over to the Federal Building. Her apparent need to call someone (he dismissed it as a need to call him specifically, that was preposterous) aside, there had been something in her tone that told him she was scared. More scared than she had any right to be, given that half the team were asleep and the other half were surrounded by law enforcement.

He glanced around. Rossi and Hotch had just disappeared into the building ahead of them. Luckily, this part of Boston was evidently used to late nights, and the coffee shop across from the Federal Building was still trading.

"Come on," he said, steering her in that direction.

She didn't resist, though she did complain all the way across the street.

Hearing that made him feel marginally better.

Whatever was scaring her must be pretty terrifying indeed, given that this was a woman who regularly conversed with ghosts, believed that zombies were a possibility and could make a dent in reinforced concrete with the force of her will.

He lowered his voice when they were inside, under the hum of the coffee machines. "What's going on?"

Grace huffed and told him about the bus and the bodies and the cryptic message on the outside while they waited for a cup of tea that looked like a spoon might stand up in it and three coffees that seemed to be brewed out of coal dust. Apparently the occupants of the nearby buildings liked their beverages strong at half past four in the morning.

"Okay," he said, filing the information away. "Um, so what's really going on?"

He caught the flick of her eyes away from his and then the steady, head on gaze and blank expression she used as her habitual mask and was unable to prevent himself from rolling his eyes. "Grace, it's not even dawn yet and you woke me up. C'mon. Give me a little credit."

She narrowed her eyes and pressed her lips together into a thin line. All at once, the mask evaporated and she slumped her hip against the counter.

"Fine." She rubbed her face. "I woke up at quarter to three with…" She frowned, obviously struggling to quantify it in a way he would understand. "The mother of all bad feelings. Like, a multiple carriage train crash, kind of feeling. Thanks," she said, and paid the barista. "No, I got this. I woke you up, as you said."

He didn't argue. He didn't want to give her the opportunity to clam up again.

"Then Hotch must have got the call about the bus, because he and Rossi showed up in the lobby of the hotel."

"But he didn't wake the rest of us?"

"No. Wasn't much point, not until we knew what was going on. I think they only took me because I was lurking on the ground floor already." She gave a self-deprecating laugh. "Might as well put insomnia to work, I guess." Her face fell again. "Got to the scene and then… I don't know. It kind of clicked. The feeling wasn't about the bus. It was about…" Grace glanced at him and then away. "Something else."

Spencer raised his eyebrows. "Something you don't want to talk about?"

She glowered at him, and then glared across the road at the Federal Building. With a sigh, she said, "I don't want us to get distracted."

Spencer watched her, quietly, as she turned her attention back to him. It was an interrogation trick and both of them knew it, but they really weren't good at candour anymore – not the normal kind. In the end, she caved, as he had hoped she would.

"It's Hotch," she said quietly, which made his mouth go dry. "I don't know what it is, or when, or how, but it's something bad and it's all to do with him."

"Are you sure?"

She nodded sadly, and there was nothing in her expression that wasn't completely truthful.

He looked across at the Federal Building, his mind going at a million miles an hour. If Hotch was in danger – but then, they had no proof. And if they focused on him instead of the case then they might miss something that could lead to whatever the bad feeling was about. And if they told him, Hotch might miss something that could lead to that, too.

"It's an impossible bloody situation," she said, as if she had read his mind.

"I guess – I guess we just keep an eye on him," said Spencer, feeling some measure of the fear that had made her call him in the first place. It was always different when it was family.

"That's all we can do," she said. "And catch this bastard before… well, before he can make life any more complicated."

 _Before he can hurt Hotch_ , Spencer guessed.

They were quite for a moment, as the barista finished making their drinks.

"I just…" Grace began, frowning at a nearby table. "I just can't shake the feeling that there's something big here. It's like a thread I can't quite see, but I know it's there – and I know it leads to something… something not good. Like… like the beginning of an end." She shook her head again. "I don't know. Let's hope I'm wrong," she joked, but it was weakly done.

Spencer managed half a smile. "Yeah," he said, thinking that this was harder to do when you knew she wasn't just nuts and imagining all the things he had never previously believed in.

Together they walked back across the road, carrying their drinks and coffees for their senior agents, who would need them by now.

"The way I see it," said Spencer, who had been turning it over in his mind, "if we have each other's backs and we get this guy, maybe your bad feeling will go away."

"I bloody hope so," said Grace, and suddenly she didn't seem so scared any more – just determined. And pissed off. "I'm glad you're here," she said, as they trotted up the front steps.

"Tch-yeah," he said. "Well, someone has to keep an eye on you."

She turned, in the half-second before pushing the door open, and stuck her tongue out at him. It was gone in an instant, replaced by the serious expression someone in a Federal Building at this time of the morning ought to have, but Spencer smiled at his shoes as he followed her in.

If they were going to share this burden – whatever the hell it was – if they could keep each other from going mad, they might be okay.

And so might Hotch.

0o0

They had been sifting through evidence for hours.

He had claimed insomnia when Rossi had asked why he was up so early, which the older man had just about bought, but it didn't really matter. One look at Aaron Hotchner had told him just how badly this case (and in particular, this unsub) had gotten under his skin. It was unsettling to see him so fragile, though he was covering it well enough, and even without Grace's dire warnings, Spencer would have been on high alert this morning.

He sighed, flipping through the crime scene photos for the third time in twenty minutes. Something was bugging him about the numbers on the bus and he didn't know what, but he was damned if he was going to let the Reaper win this one.

There was an undercurrent of dread on their floor of the Federal Building this morning, and it wasn't just the Shaunessey letter, or the bodies on the bus. He didn't know if he would have spotted it without Grace, but it seemed all the more potent with Hotch's history with the case – and the possible risks in his future. Spencer wasn't sure if it was that, or fate, or some other crap he didn't quite believe in, but that knowing Grace Pearce made horribly plausible, but all of it was putting him on edge.

"He never used code before, why now?" Hotch asked.

Spencer looked up to find him and Rossi hovering about the desk he had been glaring at. Grace was across the office, debriefing officers who would have a public panic on their hands later in the day.

"They're not part of a pattern or equation," he offered. "I mean, mathematically, they're insignificant."

"Maybe so, but I know I've seen them before," said Rossi, a deep frown furrowing his brow.

"Foyet said the Reaper likes to attack people in their cars. Tonight he hit a bus," Hotch pointed out.

"Which is why Foyet only takes the bus," said Rossi.

"It was the number seven," Hotch recalled, going to look at the map, on which Spencer had already plotted out the route. "And it stops right in front of Foyet's apartment."

"He knows where Foyet lives," said Rossi, nodding.

Hotch nodded too. "And he wants us to know it."

"1439…" Spencer said aloud – and then it clicked. "The apartment you interviewed him in today was 1439 Yarbrough."

Rossi took out his notebook and laid it on the table next to the crime scene shot of the numbers on the bus. He pointed at them. "The other addresses he gave us. 201 South Brookline, 1488 Edenhurst."

All three men looked at one another in shock.

"The numbers on the bus," Rossi concluded, "they're Foyet's addresses."

0o0

Grace moved stealthily through the pre-dawn dark, careful not to make a sound.

O'Mara had headed around the back of the house; Morgan had taken the front. Grace had opted to unlock a side window using skills she shouldn't have, intending to claim that it had been open when she found it (honest, Guv!). She found herself in the bathroom.

Somehow, with that unfailing copper's instinct that raised hairs on the back of her neck, she knew that they weren't alone in the house.

She pressed herself against the wall, ready for the crash that meant her two fellow officers were inside. Somewhere above her, a floorboard creaked.

"Possible movement upstairs," she murmured into her radio.

There was a burst of static that told her Morgan had heard and understood, then both doors smashed back against the wall.

O'Mara went past her like a liquid shadow, immediately turning up the stairs, while she took the kitchen.

Swiftly clearing the room, she was about to open the door to the main room, where Morgan presumably was, when an almighty crash shook the house. Over the sound of splintering glass and wood, she heard O'Mara give a shout from upstairs, then hit the floor with a crash. Grace kicked the door to the main room open even as he called through the radio that he'd tripped.

Morgan was nowhere to be seen – nor was any assailant, and despite the hollow space in her chest that wanted her to move quicker, she checked the room carefully before continuing. What there was, was a hole where there should have been a window.

The Reaper must have slipped past O'Mara when he got upstairs and taken Morgan by surprise.

Glad they were on the ground floor, Grace moved towards it, as silently and as swiftly as she could.

Lying on the grass outside, bleeding from several cuts he must have sustained from going through the window, was Morgan. Standing over him was a slim, menacing shape wearing a hoodie, arranged in a stance that could only mean he had a gun pointed at her friend.

"Time to die," he said, with far too much enjoyment.

"Hands where I can see them!" she shouted. "FBI, on the fucking ground!"

The man froze. "There must be some mistake," he said, in quite a different voice than before. He sounded tremulous, frightened – exactly the way you might expect a good Samaritan to sound if they suddenly found a gun to their back. "I was only trying to help."

 _Morgan better be fucking breathing,_ she thought, _or we'll have to dig you up when I'm done with you so Garcia can have a go._

"Nice try," she said firmly. "Toss your gun and get on the ground, now."

"Al-alright," he said, and began to crouch as if to comply.

 _He's going to turn and shoot,_ Grace thought, a fraction before he did just that. Fortunately that was all the time she needed to get a half decent shield in place.

The bullet went wildly astray, burying itself in the siding. Her shot went wide, too, but it was significantly closer than his had been, striking the gun in his hand. He dropped it with a roar of pain and anger, then fled along the street. He left her with her heart in her mouth and the memory of two dark eyes glaring at her from behind a peculiarly featureless mask.

Aware of running feet behind her, Grace narrowly managed to avoid being bowled over by O'Mara, who sprinted past her, out of the still-open door and after the Reaper. "Check him!" he shouted. "I got this!"

"We have an officer down," she said into her radio, jumping down the steps, her gun still out. It was remarkable, really, how level her voice was. "I need an ambulance."

"Suspect is fleeing on foot, north on Edenhurst," Grace snapped into her radio. "Detective O'Mara's in pursuit, but he needs back-up – right now! Suspect dropped his gun, but he may still be armed – and highly dangerous."

The dispatcher didn't even bother putting her on hold after she'd rattled off a rapid description; they had been warned that the BAU might need assistance. She could hear them madly organising at the other end of the line, dispatching units in their direction. Distantly, the night lit up with sirens and flashes of colour.

She pressed shaking fingers to Morgan's neck – he had a pulse. "Come on, Derek. Or I'll put itching powder in your go bag," she said. It was slow and a little thready, but it was there. "Yeah – he's alive, but unconscious. I can't see any major wounds, but he went through a window. Could you let our team know? Yeah, I'll wait."

Grace sat back on her haunches, mightily relieved; the ambulance was only a couple of minutes out, and realistically she ought to try to wake her colleague, but she was very aware of how vulnerable a position they were currently in. It was pretty dark out, despite the streetlights and the first streaks of dawn staining the sky to the east, and the Reaper could quite easily shake off one running detective and double back to their position.

So instead she stayed put, her gun held loosely in one hand, half an ear on the dispatcher, standing silent sentinel over her friend.


	6. Fate

**Essential listening: Life Sentence, by Dead Kennedys**

The house was swarming with forensics and paramedics, and small clusters of law enforcement who didn't entirely know what to do with themselves.

When they'd heard the shout over the radio, the team had hurried straight to the house; let the locals deal with a foot chase through unknown territory in the dark – one of theirs was down. They had got there just as Morgan was groggily cursing Pearce out for not letting him get up and chase after the Reaper and Pearce was gently pushing him back down, aware that he was in no fit state to run.

No sooner had they relaxed at his state of health – no one was really in a bad way if they could still curse that comprehensively – another call had come through. Morgan had been fortunate; Detective O'Mara hadn't. Back up had found his butchered body three blocks away, with no sign of the man who had cut his throat.

The paramedics had arrived then, hustling Morgan inside, and the rest along with him.

Emily had glanced at Pearce, whose face had set into a grim, grey expression when she'd heard about O'Mara, but the British agent was consciously avoiding everyone's gaze. Unexpectedly, Reid had caught her elbow and while Pearce had glared at him, the glare had subsided.

"Hey, this isn't your fault," he said quietly, mindful that Morgan was nearby and might assume he meant that it was his, given how close a call they'd just had.

"I should have gone after him," she replied, equally quietly. "I should never have let him go off on his own with someone like the Reaper on the loose."

"And what if the Reaper had doubled back?" he argued. "What, you were going to leave Morgan here on his own, out cold?"

She cast her gaze aside, frustrated, but they both knew Reid was right. Grace gave a little nod of acceptance, but pulled away and stalked into the kitchen, Reid hot on her heels.

Emily left them to it. She had given up trying to work out what was going on with them, and right now, Morgan wasn't even flirting with the paramedic who was patching him up – and that was a bad sign.

"Hey," she said. "That looks like it hurt." She nodded to the wound the paramedic was presently dressing.

From what Morgan and Pearce had told them, the Reaper had been in the house when they'd got there and waited for a quiet moment to pounce on Morgan and shove him through a window.

He grunted in response. "Mostly my pride."

Emily winced on his behalf as the paramedic pulled a shard of glass from his shoulder.

"I'll call JJ," said Rossi, coming inside. "The Bureau'll have to make a statement."

Both agents turned to see him enter the room, an ashen faced Hotch hurrying after him.

 _Of course,_ thought Emily, _he knew O'Mara from the earlier investigation._

He headed straight for Morgan. "You alright?"

Morgan grimaced as another piece of glass was extracted and then nodded. "He took my credentials."

"The important thing is you're okay," said Hotch, looking relieved but not greatly comforted.

Morgan sighed, looking troubled. He held up the thing he'd been clutching in his hand since they'd moved him inside: a bullet.

"He left me this."

"Power and manipulation," said Hotch, as Emily nodded. "Don't let him get to you."

"Yeah, right," said Morgan softly, as Hotch walked away. The paramedic pulled out another lump of glass and Morgan grimaced. "C'mon man!"

"Sorry," said the paramedic.

Morgan looked up at Emily, something oddly vulnerable in his usually steady gaze. "Prentiss, he's tellin' me 'I had you'."

"Morgan, you're alive," she said.

"You know why?" he asked, darkly.

"It doesn't really matter," said Emily.

"I'm sittin' here because I was knocked out cold," he said. "He couldn't torture me."

"He likes to interact with his victims," she realised, nodding. "To tell them he's gonna kill them before he does."

"Or by lettin' 'em know he could've," said Morgan, holding up the unspent bullet.

"Hotch is right," she told him. "He's just trying to get inside your head."

"Right or wrong, he had me," said Morgan, grabbing his shirt and getting up.

"Yeah, and then I got you," said Pearce, coming back in through the front door with Reid still doggedly following her like he was caught in her orbit.

 _She must have walked around the whole of the outside of the house trying to shake him,_ thought Prentiss in mild amusement.

"Am I going to have to knock you out again, or are you going to let this nice paramedic actually bandage that?" Pearce asked, her hands on her hips and one eyebrow raised.

It reminded Emily of a tutor she'd had when she was a child. She suppressed a smile.

 _It's funny¸_ she thought. _Sometimes I forget she used to be a team leader, and sometimes it just pops right out, like she never left it behind._

After a moment of attempting to stare her down, Morgan subsided and allowed the paramedic to finish her job.

"That's what I thought," said Pearce, as lightly as she could, but Prentiss could see how shaken she still was.

It only showed around the edges, the brittle little places they were trained to see, but it was there. It was why Reid was still hovering a little, content in the knowledge that Morgan was okay (and that Emily was watching over him), leaving him free to worry about Pearce instead.

She shared an eloquent look with him. Both of them were feeling a little protective right now.

When the paramedic was done and Morgan was marginally less taut with frustration, they went into the kitchen, where Rossi and Hotch were talking through the forensics. The floor was a sea of bloodstains, desperate scrabbles and drag marks.

Things did not look good for George Foyet.

"O'Mara was clearly killed elsewhere," said Reid, though he'd probably remarked as much to Grace when they'd gone through the first time. "This was someone else. There's… signs of a struggle and a lot of blood."

"That's an understatement," Pearce remarked.

She was still angling herself away from him, Emily noted, but standing nearby, as if he had been forgiven for trying to make her feel better – even if she hadn't forgiven herself for O'Mara's death.

"But no body…" Hotch mused.

"Just the drag marks," said Reid.

They all followed the wide smear of blood with their eyes. It went right out the kitchen door – and on that was daubed the all-seeing eye.

"Fate," said Grace, and scoffed.

"The human body holds five quarts of blood," Reid observed. "I'd say there's a little more than half that here. Whoever the… bleeder was, they lost too much to survive."

"Foyet," said Rossi. "It was his worst fear, that the Reaper would come back and finish the job."

"We offered him protection," said Hotch quietly but firmly. "He refused. It was his choice."

Grace frowned. "In the circumstances, I think I would have taken that offer."

"That's not gonna help," Hotch admonished.

"No," she said, shaking her head. "I don't mean that – it's just… If you've spent the last ten years dreading something and it starts happening, wouldn't you take any opportunity you could to put as many armed people and as much distance between you and the nightmare?"

"I would probably hop the first plane," said Emily.

"He said he didn't want to let the Reaper take Boston away from him," said Rossi. "It's his home."

Pearce nodded at that, but she didn't look convinced.

"What?" asked Emily, as Hotch and Rossi left the kitchen to shepherd Morgan towards an SUV and the hotel.

"If I was facing the Reaper in the way Foyet was and I loved my city the way he apparently did, I wouldn't try to face him alone," she said, as they made their way outside towards the other Yuke. "I mean, I've got contacts all over London, even now – and they might not be happy to see me, but if I knew the Reaper was coming for me I'd call in as many old favours as I had."

"He cut himself off, though," Emily reminded her, wondering why Grace's old friends would be unhappy to see her.

"So? So have I. I'd still take any help I could get," she argued.

Reid let her take the passenger seat and climbed into the back, listening thoughtfully.

"There's still some people you talk to," he said, as Emily pulled away.

She glanced at her colleagues, wondering – not for the first time – what had made Pearce cut her old life off so completely, and how much Reid knew about it.

 _More than I do, anyway._

"True, but not most of them," she said dismissively. "But I'd still ask for help, even if I thought I wouldn't get it – and Rossi and Hotch offered a get-out-of-dead-free card and he didn't take it."

"Maybe he thought he would do better hiding out on his own, rather than us possibly using him as bait," Emily mused, then caught the other agents' expressions. "What? If we'd had to, you know Hotch would have tried to talk him into it."

"We've done it before," Reid allowed, grudgingly.

Grace nodded. "And no doubt will again. Still. He must have had some reason not to want to get out of dodge."

"A relationship we don't know about?" Emily proposed.

"Unfinished business?" Pearce suggested.

"Something worth risking your life for…" Reid mused.

They were quiet for a moment, thinking.

"I don't know," said Grace, gazing out of the window. "It just doesn't sit right with me."

0o0

"Why is he so focused on Foyet?" Hotch asked. "What's so special about him?"

They had reconvened at the Federal Building in something of a sombre mood. It was never easy, losing someone – and even though O'Mara wasn't on the team they were taking it hard. Morgan's near miss and the detective's death had kept them busy for most of the night and they had come back, if not refreshed, then at least refocused.

"He was his only surviving victim," JJ suggested. "The only one he couldn't defeat."

"But he's not a threat," Hotch countered. "Defeating him would be no great accomplishment. There's something there that we're missing."

"What about the girlfriend, Amanda Bertrand?" JJ asked. "What – what do we know about her?"

"Nineteen, a freshman," said Prentiss. "She came here from Michigan to go to school. Foyet was a teacher's assistant in one of Amanda's courses."

"Michigan," said Hotch, thoughtfully. "Where the Reaper had Shaunessy post the personal ad."

"That can't be a coincidence," JJ observed.

"He told us that she was the love of his life," said Rossi. "That he was going to propose."

"But she just got here from Michigan," Morgan pointed out. "They only met when the class started."

"How long had she been in the class?" Hotch asked.

"Four weeks," said Prentiss, checking her notes.

"So, it was either love at first sight or… what?" JJ asked.

"Or he lied," said Grace.

"He's a twenty-eight-year-old teacher's assistant in freshman classes," said Hotch.

Rossi nodded as Hotch began making a call. "That gives him plenty of access to young girls."

"If he's lying about Amanda, then can we have any faith in his description of the unsub?" Grace asked. "I mean, just because someone's a skeez, doesn't mean they can't also be a victim."

"You said yourself that description was iffy," Rossi pointed out.

"So, what?" said Reid. "He made it up?"

Grace, who had been hovering near the board with Reid, slowly sat down. "He inserted himself right into the heart of the investigation," she said.

Reid put a hand over his mouth. "He refused protection because – because he had unfinished business..."

"Garcia?" Hotch said, putting her on speaker.

" _I'm here."_

"Uh – what are Foyet's aliases?" Hotch asked Rossi, who handed his notebook over. "I want you to look up in Boston city records a… Kevin Baskin, Miles Holden and William Parker. Try the Department of Education."

" _Well played, sir,"_ said Garcia after a moment. _"They all work for the Department of Education, they're all substitute teachers and they all teach computer science."_

"High school?"

" _Yeah… Oops, scratch that. They're not all working for the Department of Education."_

"They're not?" Hotch asked, picking up on her tone.

" _No,"_ she told them. _"William Parker was fired for alleged inappropriate behaviour with his female students."_

There was a moment of ringing silence before everyone started moving.

"Colson went to see Foyet," said Hotch, over the noise of various agents rearranging their minds (and the furniture). "Garcia, I need you to locate Roy Colson's cell phone! George Foyet is the Reaper."

" _Oh God, uh – okay, triangulating now!"_

Everybody started switching out suit jackets for body armour while she typed.

" _I got it, 2633 South Babylon."_

"It must be an address that Foyet didn't give us," said Morgan, as they started checking the map.

0o0

"He stabbed Amanda Bertrand, he drove a mile, made the 911 call, he went back and he inflicted those wounds on himself," Aaron reasoned, as they sped towards Foyet's last bolthole.

He focused on the road. Colson was a friend and he wasn't about to lose another today.

"He knew EMS would get there in time to save him," said Rossi, from the back of the SUV.

"Between the phone call and the severity of his wounds, we never considered him as a suspect," he complained, aware of the bitterness in his voice.

"Why would he do it?" Morgan asked.

"It put him at the core of the investigation," Aaron explained. "Everything we had came from him."

"He left his own glasses at the crime scene," Morgan realised. "He pointed us right back in his direction and still we didn't see it."

 _Don't remind me_ , Aaron thought. _I've been working on this damn profile for ten years and all I saw was a victim. He mined us for information and then sat back and laughed while we chased our own tails. And because we didn't spot it – because I didn't spot it – Mike got his throat cut and Morgan and Pearce nearly suffered the same._

He floored the accelerator.

0o0

Dave followed Aaron in through the front door, every fibre of his being alive to the danger they were all in – and the excitement of finally being able to nail this guy. He'd had them fooled for so long – Rossi included.

Well, it would make an interesting lecture – if they managed to get out of this alive. Preferably with Colson, too.

They could hear the Reaper in the next room, apparently forcing Colson to rewrite the ending of his book.

"You wrote that I was either dead or arrested. Well, now you know that's not what happened. I _won_."

Dave met Aaron's eyes, waiting for his cue to move in.

"I won," he growled. "I beat them. And I want everybody to know that."

As soon as he saw them, Foyet got to his feet, bringing the gun closer to the journalist's head.

"It's over," said Aaron, his gun pointing at Foyet's head.

"Stop," said the Reaper, leaning across the table to make his intent (shooting Colson right in front of them) clear. "I'll kill him."

"You need him to write your story," said Aaron, without flinching.

"I'm taking him with me," said the Reaper, nodding at Colson, who visible swallowed. "I'll let him go as soon as I'm safe."

 _Yeah, we believe you,_ thought Dave, but he stayed quiet. This was Aaron's battle, not his.

"No you're not," said Aaron.

"I said I'll kill him!" Foyet snapped, evidently feeling he was losing control of the situation.

"You kill him, I kill you," Aaron told him calmly – more calmly than Dave suspected he felt.

Foyet scoffed. "You think I'm afraid to die?"

"You're not afraid," said Aaron softly, choosing his words with deadly precision despite his anger at the harm this evil little man had created. "You're greedy and narcissistic. You want the recognition that's going to come from the book that he's gonna write. You want the fame that's gonna come from the media. It's gonna be like Bundy."

The Reaper smiled as the rest of the team took up positions behind him. "I'm going to be bigger than Bundy." He seemed to look around at the six department issue guns pointed at him and evaluate his options.

"Well, you can't enjoy it if you're dead," Aaron pointed out.

A part of Dave that he wasn't especially proud of, but had learned to live with over the years, thought that it might be better all round if Foyet opted for suicide by multiple FBI agents. But it was a small room, and they were just as likely to shoot each other as him.

He was wavering – Dave could almost taste it – but he couldn't resist one last stab at Hotch. "If you know me so well, how come so many had to die to bring you here?"

"That's your choice, not mine," said Aaron simply. "You're the serial killer."

"That's right," said Foyet, with deep-seated arrogance. He looked over his shoulder at Morgan. "Hello, Derek."

He smiled, then he put his gun on the table. Morgan had him in an instant; Prentiss grabbed the gun and made it safe.

"Where's my badge, huh?" Morgan demanded, but Foyet only laughed. "Where is it, you son of a bitch?"

The Reaper smiled again, his eyes fixed on Aaron. "I'm gonna be more famous than you even realise."

"Keep dreamin'," Morgan advised, and he and Prentiss bodily removed him from the house.

Aaron put away his weapon and shifted his focus to Roy Colson, who was still shaking, sitting at the table. He put a hand on his shoulder. "You okay?"

"I'm okay," he said, sounding shocked. "Yeah, I'm okay." It was a mark of how perceptive the man was that he looked up at Aaron and asked, "You?"

Aaron didn't answer.

0o0

 _Men heap together the mistakes of their lives and create a monster they call destiny._

 _John Hobbes_

0o0

The takedown had been easy, as they went, if a little hairy in terms of getting there in time to save Colson. Fortunately, a large part of the satisfaction for Foyet was toying with his victims.

They had got there in the nick of time. Foyet had had a gun to his head, forcing him to write a new chapter of his story – the way he wanted it to end. Colson had been white as a sheet and shaking, hunched over his laptop as the Reaper levelled a gun between his eyes.

There had been the usual threats when they'd burst in, but they all knew that Colson was worth more to Foyet alive – how else would he get the attention he craved now he had been caught – and in the end he had simply given up, the way so many of them did.

In some ways, though there appeared to be an infinite variety to the unsubs they faced, they really were all the same. And they _always_ believed they were unique.

The jet was quiet. Several people were dozing – JJ had a file open in her lap and an arm thrown across her face, catching up with some much needed sleep before getting home to her son, who would promptly rob her of it again. Rossi was reading what looked like a proof – presumably of his next book. Hotch was still on a call, wrapping the last few loose ends up with the field office. Prentiss had been halfway through a game on her phone when she, too had fallen asleep. It was still flashing on the little tray table.

Spencer leaned over and turned it off, saving the battery.

Across from him, Grace was staring out of the window at the clouds, slowly unwrapping British candies one by one, eating them, and then fiddling with the wrappers. He watched as she transformed one of them into a flower, absently folding the paper with her nails without even looking.

He looked away as Hotch passed him, going to where Morgan was sitting, still antsy because of how Foyet had nearly taken him out, turning the bullet over and over in his hands.

"They didn't find your credentials at any of the residences," he said, joining him. He continued, when he didn't get a response, "The blood at the house was Foyet's. Reid guessed low. The coroner said it was four quarts."

Spencer, who has trying not to listen in, raised his eyebrows. _Woah._

He watched Grace's fingers make a tiny orange boat, mesmerised.

"Hotch, how is that possible?" Morgan asked. "He'd be dead."

"He's been planning his death for a long time," Hotch mused.

"So, what? He took a little blood at a time until he had enough to convince us he was dead without findin' his body?" Morgan gave a low, incredulous whistle.

Spencer had to hand it to Foyet, he had thought of everything – and been unusually committed to his plans. He must have got so much satisfaction from controlling Shaunessy that he didn't have to work too hard to suppress his urge to kill.

"Morgan, you're going to have to find a way to let it go," said Hotch, and Spencer could hear the frown in his voice.

 _Easier said than done, though_ , he thought.

"Could you?" Morgan asked.

Hotch didn't hesitate before replying. "I'd have to."

Morgan sighed again and Hotch returned to his seat. When Spencer got to his feet he was already starting work on a report.

Reflecting that Morgan wasn't the only one who would have to work hard to leave this one behind, he slid into the seat opposite Grace. Although they were a lot better at working together now, it was unusual for them to voluntarily share the same space outside of the 'safer' realms of murder and crime. She glanced at him, frowned and nodded, immediately going back to her candy wrappers.

He bit his lip, trying not to think of snow, or takeout, or missed chances. Instead, he leaned a little closer – mindful of how easy it was to inadvertently eavesdrop on the jet – and waited for the movement to catch her attention.

"What's – uh… You okay?" he asked, in a low voice.

To her credit, she didn't try to brush him off this time; she nodded, gave a half shrug, and returned her gaze to the clouds. Spencer looked out of the window. The sky was beautiful. There was just enough light left for the tops of the clouds to be shot through with a pale, silvery glow, running to deeper hues lower down. He could see why it had her entranced.

"We got him," he said, returning his gaze to her face.

Grace looked at him oddly for a moment, frowning slightly, but nodded again, still fiddling with the wrappers. Absently, she handed him one of the candies and he took it, unwrapping the yellow paper and popping the weird, chewy thing into his mouth without thinking. It tasted vaguely of lemons, but mostly of sugar; like super-sweet taffy that had been left in the sun and had gone soft. Unexpectedly, it made his mouth water and he reached for another one.

"Whatever he was gonna do – whatever he was planning – he can't do it now," Spencer continued – and suddenly he was seized by the notion that he wasn't _telling_ her this. He was asking.

He wanted her to tell him that everything would be okay. Which meant that a part of him, however small and overlooked, suspected it would not.

"Didn't we?"

Grace frowned at the wrapper in her hands; this one didn't seem to have a form yet, as if looking at it while she was thinking about its shape somehow made it shapeless.

Mildly frustrated with her lack of answers and more than a little worried about the strange feeling that was stealing over him that things _wouldn't_ be okay, even though they should be, he reached out and took the wrapper from her unresisting fingers, capturing her full attention.

"Didn't we?" he asked again.

He could feel an answering frown forming on his face.

Grace sighed, folding her arms in front of her and leaning on the table, rendering their conversation even more covert.

"I don't know," she said heavily, and he realised how weary she looked, like she hadn't really slept the whole time they had been in Boston. "The feeling hasn't gone away. Even after Morgan. Even after O'Mara…"

She huffed and glanced behind her to where Hotch was glaring at the file in front of him, clearly Not Dealing with the headcount the Reaper had generated before they'd caught him.

Spencer followed her gaze and swallowed, anxious now. He had thought he must have been imagining it, that feeling of foreboding at the very edge of his consciousness, but now…

He licked his lips, worried. "He's in prison," he said, sounding firm more for his benefit than Grace's. "He can't hurt anyone anymore." Grace met his gaze, and he saw the same doubt in her eyes that he knew must be in his. "We just have to believe that," he added, uncomfortable.

"This whole thing…" Grace mused, fiddling with the candy wrapper she'd turned into a small origami frog. "It doesn't feel over."

0o0

They'd barely made it to their desks when JJ rushed back out of her office. "Foyet escaped," she said, and ran up the steps into Hotch's office to tell him and Rossi.

Grace met Spencer's eyes over the divide between his and Emily's desk. He shot her a frightened look as the four agents sprang into action.

"Guards found him vomiting blood and convulsing in his cell," JJ explained as she, Hotch and Rossi stalked in. "They rushed him to the prison hospital."

"Get me the US Marshall's office," Hotch ordered.

"I already called Don Reilly," JJ replied. "I offered our assistance – he said they'd call us if they needed it."

"Which means they think they don't," said Grace sourly, searching urgently through the files she had in her bag for anything that might help.

"Boston Field Office just called," Emily announced, ear still pressed to her phone. "They just identified documents from Foyet's house.

Reid, who had sprinted across the room to the underused fax machine waved them at the group. "They're schematics for the electrical, heating and water ducts at East Woburn Correctional Facility."

"He had the schematics," Hotch asked, shocked.

"And not just for Woburn," said Reid. "For every jail, prison and courthouse in Massachusetts."

"And ten years to plan," Rossi reminded them darkly.

Garcia, who had been watching the monitor in the corner that was perpetually tuned to a news channel and was presently displaying the headline about Foyet's escape, turned to them with wide, frightened eyes.

"They're gonna find him, right?"

It was Hotch who shook his head. "No they're not."

"He said he'd be more famous than he knew," said Morgan tensely. "And he was right."


	7. The Hanging Trees

**OH MY LORD, I'M SO SORRY.**

 **So, went to London, went to Stonehenge, went to York, got back and – just couldn't write. Couldn't do much, to be honest. It's like all the tired from the last two years caught up at once and I couldn't even make myself get on here and post a hiatus. Basically, I spent the last two months hibernating, but I'm back now, and I got t-shirts for everybody!**

 **Well, no t-shirts, actually, but a new chapter at least – and a page, for my non-fanfiction stuff (search for Lauren K. Nixon and and you'll find my weird self), and a (currently quite short) vlog about writing and stuff on the Tube of You. Should be back to once a week again on Moments of Grace for the foreseeable (but when does that ever happen anymore?).**

 **Thanks for all you lovelies who messaged me to check in and see if I was dead. Love you! Sorry it took me so damn long to respond!**

 **Pxx**

 **0o0**

 **Essential listening: Hanging Tree, by Queens of the Stone Age**

 **0o0**

"You know, all your strange aunts and uncles have your back," said Grace, tickling the baby's foot. "No one like him will ever get to you – they'd have to go through us. Yes they would. They would – and they wouldn't get far."

The small human squealed with delight.

"And my boy will be watching over you, too, same as he does the rest of us." The little boy stilled, as if for once he was really listening. "I was scared for a long time, you know, and Michael kept me going. But I'll tell you a secret."

Wide blue, innocent eyes stared up at her as she spoke softly.

"I'm not afraid of _him_ anymore." She smiled. "Don't tell anyone. That's just between you and me, you understand – a covenant of silence."

The baby stared at her in that way that small children sometimes had, as if he was waiting to see if she might explode or turn purple or something.

"And I won't tell anyone that you spent ten minutes squashing pasta into your daddy's slippers."

Henry Jareau-LaMontagne burbled happily, clutching a plastic rocket ship in one hand, the other thrust into Grace's honey coloured curls like a tiny torture device.

"Less of that, laddie," she said, gently untangling her hair. Henry looked mildly disgruntled and made another spirited grab for her. "I know, hair is fascinating," she said, sweeping it out of his reach, "but it hurts quite a bit, and I think we should stay friends, don't you?"

Henry made a series of noises that Grace chose to interpret as conversation and laughed, bouncing him up and down to temper his disappointment. He let out a guileless shriek of giggles and allowed himself to be swung around while Grace trotted up the stairs.

It was bath time in the little townhouse where Henry held court, and since JJ and Will hadn't been out together as adults since their adorable son had arrived, Grace had offered to babysit for a couple of hours. It was still painful, sometimes, never having had this time with her own, infant son, but Grace had found that the more she interacted with the little boy, the less it hurt her chest when she was around him.

Soon, Henry was in the little safety seat in the bath, making a tremendous amount of mess and Grace was laughing her head off, the shirt she had been wearing entirely soaked through.

"You're a naughty creature, right after my own heart," she said, sweeping him up and tickling him, then swaddling him in a towel. He wriggled happily while she emptied the bath and tidied up the bathroom. "Don't want to get me in trouble with your mummy and daddy now, do we?"

Henry blew a raspberry and Grace laughed again. "Aha, I see your cunning plan."

He was reasonably unwilling to go to sleep, since Grace wasn't the same shape or smell as the people who usually settled him down, but she put him in the cot anyway, in a baby-gro Morgan had picked out, emblazoned with the name of the Chicago Bears (much to the annoyance of JJ, who was a Redskins fan), and he wriggled around while she read him a story about a duck who had lost his balloon. When she was done she regarded him speculatively over the top of the picture book. He was evidently fighting to stay awake, but not yet taking it out on her, which was good.

"You're feeling very sleepy," she said, in the manner of old hypnotists, and then chuckled at herself. "Tell you what, kiddo – if we're already keeping each other's secrets, just this once I'll let you in on one more of mine."

She put the book down and sat next to the cot, one hand through the bars where he could grab it if he wanted to. Reaching one hand up to the ceiling, she splayed out her fingers. Henry watched, fascinated, as the air above him shimmered and turned dark, breaking out into a scatter of tiny, dazzling points of light.

"Apparently that used to be a bit of a party trick, back in the days when people didn't have the internet to look things up on," she said, conversationally. "I always rather liked it when I was in the bath – or when I can't sleep."

Henry grabbed her hand and attempted to move it up and down a few times, but without any great commitment, and she sang him an old Swedish song her mother had learned from an exchange student in her youth, and which Grace still remembered her singing. Together, they watched the stars, until Henry was making tiny snuffling snoring noises and Grace could gently remove her hand from his vice-like grip and tiptoe out of the bedroom, waving a hand behind her so as to leave no trace of the stars.

0o0

 _The past is there like a scent, armfuls of it, arches of it, lifted, steadied hips of it, all the rolling lilting movement of all of it, fresh clay of the skin and the smell of home in the hair. It is a casket, split open and then closed to me again._

 _James Sheard_

0o0

Derek swirled the coffee in his cup contemplatively.

He had just finished another in a long line of consultation reports (this time for a prison release candidate who would not be getting out any time soon if the board followed Derek's recommendations) and his eyes were already tired.

While Jordan Todd had worked with them, he had got into the habit of heading to the training ground at the crack of dawn every other day to give her a hand with her field proficiency. Though his intentions hadn't been entirely honourable at the outset, Jordan had been happy to take advantage of his willingness to help her out – and so had one or two of the other cadets whose hours lent themselves to pre-dawn workouts and trials. Now, with Jordan back with Counter Intelligence and keeping radically different hours (when they were even in the same state), Derek had found himself with a small crew of cadets who were eager for any pointers he could give.

He smiled, amused. They probably hadn't been quite prepared for the enthusiasm with which he had been drilling them, but when their fit-tests came around they'd be thanking him. Teaching wasn't something he had ever really expected to enjoy, it being an activity he'd always thought was more up Reid's street, but he was. It was like paying forward the skills he had learned. He was particularly enjoying how much they had improved, of late, but it was hard work, particularly on top of jet sleep and long case hours.

Jordan met him for an early morning coffee sometimes, and that took the edge off a little, though he was reasonably sure she wasn't interested in anything long-term.

Still, he was looking forward to the week after the fit-test, when the cadets would unanimously neglect to show up and he would get a lie-in.

Stifling a yawn he made a second cup of strong coffee and dropped it in front of Emily, who had been up early for a completely different reason.

"So the whole apartment is flooded?" Derek asked, with sympathy.

"All of it," she groaned. "I mean, thank God it was just coming from across the hall instead of through the ceiling. The bottom two inches of everything is soaked – and I was halfway through a book and I left it on the floor. Now it's basically a papier-mâché brick."

Derek pulled a face. "And your neighbour didn't know?"

"No, he had no idea," she said. "I can't even be annoyed at him. He's a veterinarian and he'd done a triple shift, and at some point over those two full days the water heater in his apartment started gushing, and by about three a.m. this morning my flat was two inches deep in water."

"Man, that sucks."

"Yeah," Emily agreed emphatically. "And now everything stinks." She sighed heavily. "At least he's offered to fix it – but, I mean, that's going to be a week or so. I've never looked forward to getting a case so much in my life."

Derek patted her shoulder. "I got a spare room, Prentiss. Come crash with me until you get your apartment back."

"Seriously?" she said, perking up a little.

"Yeah – we'll watch cop dramas and throw popcorn at the screen when they get stuff wrong," he insisted. "It'll be a blast."

"Tempting," said Emily, with marginally less sincerity. "Alright, but I'm taking you out for dinner when we get back from this one – no argument."

He held up his hands in mock submission, but both of them were grinning when JJ hurried over.

"Child abduction," she said tersely, and the smiles fell off their faces. "Hotch is skipping the briefing – we're going straight to the jet."

The smiles fading from their faces, the two agents grabbed their go-bags and waved at Reid, who had just come in.

"Turn around, kid," said Derek. "Wheels up."

0o0

The jet, not surprisingly, was tense.

"Peachtree City, Georgia. This is Dylan Ferris, six years old," said JJ, holding up a picture of a grinning little boy on a bike. "Three weeks ago, he was playing out with some friends when he went missing."

"That's something," said Rossi. "At least we have witnesses…"

He trailed off as JJ shook her head. "The kids he was with said one moment he was there, the next he wasn't."

"They didn't spot anyone out of place?" Reid asked, surprised.

"No. They only noticed he was gone when they were called in for dinner and his bike was left behind," she told them. "Two days later, one of the groundskeepers at Line Creek Nature Area found Dylan's body hanging from a tree just off the main path."

The agents grimaced, sucked air through their teeth or gave low whistles; the photograph of the small boy suspended by the rope was particularly grotesque.

"It's a public park?" Grace asked.

"Yes," said JJ heavily. "There was supposed to be a school trip there that day – luckily the police kept them away and they went someplace else. It was Dylan's class."

Everybody around the table sat up a little bit straighter.

"That can't be a coincidence, surely," Emily mused. "Did P.D. check out parents, teachers – anyone with knowledge of the field trip?"

"They're working on it, but no one they've checked out has been flagged up as a person of interest yet," JJ answered. "And the majority of them have alibies."

"We'll keep an eye on it," said Hotch in a manner that suggested the conversation should move on. "But we can't preclude the possibility that it was a coincidence – however unlikely that is."

"It says here the coroner found barbiturates in his blood," said Rossi.

"Wow," Spencer remarked. "That much Zolpidemwould knock out an adult, let alone a six year old little boy."

"Is that the cause of death?" Grace asked, but Spencer shook his head.

"Looks like he was drugged and then hanged." He scratched his eyebrow, frowning. "Asphyxiation."

"Curious," Morgan observed. "Like whoever took him didn't want him to suffer."

"But they're fine with other people suffering," Prentiss pointed out. "They displayed him in a public place, where – even if the field trip hadn't been headed there that day – it looks like a place families frequent."

"Signs of repeated sexual assault," Rossi pointed out, grimly. "And multiple bruises to the face, head and torso, along with signs of restraints."

"So he was beaten, abused and restrained," Morgan mused. "That's got to make a lot of noise. We're looking at private property out in the sticks, or else some serious sound proofing."

"I'll have Garcia run a check for suspicious purchases," JJ said. "Two weeks after Dylan's body was found, another little boy, Rufus Caradine, went missing walking home from school."

"Same age," Grace observed, picking up the second file on the table. "Same background. Says he was supposed to walk with his neighbour, who's a couple of years older, but he blew him off to play baseball with a few classmates."

"Forty eight hours later," said JJ, holding up a photograph of another small body hanging from a tree, "a jogger found his remains in the Flat Creek Nature Area, not far from the parking lot."

"His autopsy reads almost word for word the same as Dylan's," Emily mused sadly. "Zolpidem in his blood, evidence of physical and sexual abuse, cause of death asphyxia."

"A week and a half ago, P.D. found a third little boy, Charles Colson, in a wildlife sanctuary a few miles East of Peach Tree City," JJ continued. "He had the same physical trauma as the first two boys, same tox' screen. He was seven. He and his little sister had walked to the Seven-Eleven at the end of their street to pick up some milk."

"She see anythin'?" Morgan asked, hopefully.

"The local detective thinks so, but she doesn't want to talk about it and the child services liaison didn't want them to push it." JJ sighed. "Uh, I got the impression they're waiting for us to get there."

"Well, better someone with training handles it than traumatising the poor kid further," said Grace, with a shrug that suggested that she'd seen a situation where it hadn't gone well.

"You know, we're gonna have to address the elephant in the room," said Rossi, settling back in his chair. "All these boys have a lot in common, but the main thing is their ethnicity. They're all African American."

"And they're being killed and displayed in a way that obviously harks back to the KKK and our less savoury past," Spencer added.

The assembled agents nodded soberly. "I'm guessing the media have picked up on that," Emily said, and JJ nodded emphatically.

"Oh, yeah. You could say that. They've had vans camped outside the Peach Tree City Police Department since the last little boy went missing."

"Why have they only just got in touch with us?" Grace asked. "I mean, after the second boy vanished, they should have connected it."

"They did," said Hotch. "The incumbent DA is running for office and didn't want the publicity."

The British agent gave a low whistle. "Well, he's got it now."

Hotch nodded. "I spoke to him this morning. Things are pretty tense between his office and the Police Department right now."

"I'm not surprised, if he was trying to sit on something like this," Morgan reflected.

"So we'll need to be careful, particularly with the press breathing down our necks," Hotch continued. "

"It's been a week and a half since the last abduction," Rossi pointed out. "Odds are he'll be looking for a new kid already."

"We need to work quickly and limit the distractions from the case," said Hotch. "JJ, try to get the media to back off."

She nodded. "I'll give it my best shot – but they've really got their teeth into this, and they're keeping people scared and angry."

"And we know what scared and angry people look like," Grace mused.

Spencer nodded. "A mess."

"People are freaked out," said JJ. "Um, the Chief of Police put a curfew in force to try to limit the unsub's victim pool, but…"

"But these kids are bein' taken in broad daylight," Morgan finished. "Great."

"Exactly," said JJ.

"Okay," said Hotch. "Pearce, Rossi – you go talk to Dylan Ferris' family. Reid, Prentiss – take the Caradines. Morgan and I will speak to the Chief of Police – uh, Carol Seward – and then speak with Charles Colson's next of kin." He paused and sighed. "I don't have to tell you, tensions are going to be high," said Hotch, with an air of weariness, "and given this guy's cycle we don't have time to deal with it. The clock is ticking."

0o0

Dave took the cup of coffee he had been offered politely, as did Pearce, though neither one of them drank it. They weren't thirsty, but there was comfort to be had in the mundane at times like this, and the Ferrises showed distinct signs of severe post-bereavement depression. Their kitchen looked like a tornado had hit it, which – Dave supposed – it more or less had, if you considered the loss of a child as the same magnitude as a natural disaster, but at a personal level.

"We're sorry to intrude on you at this extremely difficult time," he said, aware that there really wasn't any way to make that sound less like a meaningless platitude, no matter how sincerely it was meant. "But we just wanted to go over a few things with you again."

"What good will that do?" Leela Ferris asked, unhappily. "We've told you people everything we know – can't you just leave us alone?"

"Often there are things people only remember later," said Pearce gently. "Things they only half-notice because they could be entirely innocent and seem unimportant at the time."

The woman rounded on her at once. "You think I haven't gone over this a thousand times?" she demanded.

"Leela, please," her husband said, placatingly. "They're just doing their jobs."

"What the hell have they been doing the last five weeks?" she hissed. "When two more babies got taken and –"

She broke down, sitting abruptly at the kitchen table. Her husband rubbed soothing circles over her back. "I'm sorry," he said. "This has hit us very hard."

"It's nothing," Dave assured them. "We know this is hard for you both."

"And we do understand how often you must have relived the day Dylan was abducted," Pearce added.

She shared a momentarily grim look with Dave.

 _Yes,_ it said. _This is far from pleasant, and we have to make it worse. We've gotta ask._

He gave her the slightest of nods. They had to try, for Dylan's sake, and for the other dead boys.

"That's why I asked," she continued, gently. "Is there something that doesn't sit right with you about that day?"

Leela subjected her to a fiercely distressed glare. "You mean other than my little boy being abducted and hurt and murdered?" she challenged.

"Something small – a little niggle at the back of your mind, maybe," Pearce went on, just as gently. Not quite ignoring the grieving mother's outburst, but not allowing its acknowledgement to derail the question. "A tiny detail that just seemed off – a feeling of being observed, or an instinct that something in the neighbourhood just wasn't right –"

"You're suggesting this is our fault!" the woman shouted, rising to her feet and pointing an accusatory finger in Pearce's face. Her husband followed her motion, trying to calm her down.

Dave briefly closed his eyes. She was hurt and angry, and there was nothing they or anybody else could do about it. But they could try to bring her and her husband some closure.

"Leela, please –" Eric Ferris almost begged.

"Not in the least, Mrs Ferris," said Pearce, quite unruffled. "The only person responsible for this is the person who took and hurt your son."

Leela Ferris crumpled, leaving the room.

"Leela! Excuse me," Eric cried helplessly, and trailed after her.

The two agents remained in the over-loud, over-quiet, messy kitchen, listening as two pairs of footsteps went through the house, up the stairs and across the landing. Somewhere above them, a door slammed. They could hear Eric Ferris murmuring soothing things through the door, but thankfully neither of them could make out the words.

Dave sighed. "This is tearing them apart."

Pearce nodded tersely. She crossed the kitchen and – to Dave's surprise – started washing the dishes and cups strewn across the counter.

The Ferrises were evidently in that stage of grief where daily life fell by the wayside. Doubtless, things like tidiness and washing dishes felt entirely superfluous without their son.

"I hate pushing people like that," she remarked, after a moment.

Dave watched her work for a few seconds, observing the determined line of her mouth and the straightness of her back.

 _She lost her father_ , he reminded himself. _She understands exactly where this family are right now._

"Yeah," he agreed aloud. "Sometimes this job is the worst. But it's like you said, no one is responsible for this except the unsub, and sometimes you gotta push people to their limits in order to track the bastard down."

She nodded, carefully stacking clean plates in the space she had cleaned for them. Dave watched the suds gather at the bottom, then picked up the tea towel.

"You wash, I'll dry," he said.

They'd have to wait for the Ferrises to come back anyway, before leaving, and while no one could bring their little boy home, at least they could do this. There was companionable silence in the kitchen for a while as the two agents returned a little order to the chaos of two grieving parents' lives. It wasn't much, but sometimes it was the small things that mattered.

"Y'all don't have to – I mean –"

They turned to find Eric Ferris watching them from the doorway, looking embarrassed.

"When I lost my father," Pearce said quietly, "it was the ordinary things that got on top of me. They just sort of piled up when I wasn't paying attention, and then I felt like I was drowning. Some of my mates showed up and cleaned my house, much to my horror – but I felt better. And it did help a little."

Eric's shoulders sagged and he let out a ragged breath. "Yeah," he said, and gave something approaching a chuckle. "You know, I preach exactly that at Sunday school."

"It's different when you experience it first-hand," said Dave.

Eric nodded. "Leela's… I just don't know how to help her."

"Just be there for her," Dave advised. "Keep doing what you're doing. That's all you can do."

"It'll be enough," said Pearce. "But don't neglect to look after yourself, too."

He gave another hollow chuckle.

"I just can't get used to how quiet the house is, without Dylan in it," he admitted, disconsolately. "I don't know what to do with his stuff, even… I'm just so lost, and I can't help Leela." He gave an unhappy shrug. "Tried to go back to work, but I just can't concentrate. It's like being underwater."

"You get in touch with the grief counsellors the police liaison suggested?" Dave asked, tentatively.

"I…" Eric shook his head. "I just don't know what to say."

"And you feel like, because you're a community leader and you've helped people through things like this before that you ought to be able to handle it alone."

Eric's eyes snapped up to Pearce's face. "How did –"

She gave him a thin-lipped, humourless smile. "Because that's how I felt. I still do it, sometimes, when this job hits a bit too close to home."

Dave nodded, despite himself. They all did. And they all covered it well enough that people off the team probably wouldn't notice.

Profilers.

They were the absolute worst.

"Don't isolate yourself. It's the worst thing you can do," she said, in the manner of someone who had direct experience of why, and Eric seemed to accept it.

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Thanks."

Pearce nodded and dried her hands, giving him time to collect himself.

He saw them both to the door. "You know," he said, as they were shaking hands. "There was one thing – but it's probably nothing. I come home for lunch some days, and I did the day – the day that… That day. Uh… there was a beat-up old van at the end of the street. I wouldn't even have noticed it, but it looked like it mighta broken down. I think the woman driving it was changing the tyre."

Dave raised an eyebrow. At the very least, they might have a witness. "Could you describe the van?"

"It had seen better days," said Eric, frowning. "Rusty. Pale-blue. Like it mighta had letters on it, but they'd peeled off."

"And the driver?" Pearce added.

"She looked like she mighta seen better days, too," he said, and then backtracked. "I don't mean in a bad way – she just looked… tired. Exhausted. Like it was the mother of all bad days. I rolled my window down and asked if she needed a hand, but she said she was fine."

"Age?"

"Maybe in her thirties? Short hair, I think. I'm sorry, I can't remember much else about her."

"You didn't happen to see the van's registration number, did you?" Dave asked, without much hope.

"YU35 something," Eric said, to their surprise. "I remembered because it was my colleague's 35th birthday and I told him about it when I got back to the office."

"Thanks," said Pearce, noting it down.

"Do you think she might have seen something?" he asked, wringing his hands.

"Maybe," said Dave.

"It's certainly worth asking," Pearce agreed.

They left him gazing sadly out at the front lawn, where his late son's bicycle was still propped against a tree, tributes to him arranged around it like a roadside shrine.

Dave let Pearce drive. The scenery in Peach Tree City was pleasant to look at, but with several golf courses close to the centre of it, there were an astonishing number of golf carts driving on the paths and minor roads, and it made him faintly nervous. According to Reid, who had given them a history of the town from memory while they were landing, the permits for golf carts and where they were allowed to roam were a bone of some contention among the locals.

He didn't blame them.

His phone buzzed in his pocket.

"Rossi." He tilted his head. "Hey Aaron. What'ya got?"

He felt Pearce glance in his direction as he listened, mentally syphoning out the salient points.

"The department is under siege," he said, after he'd hung up.

Pearce made a sound of displeasure. "Media?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Bloody vultures."

Dave nodded. "JJ's making in-roads, but they're getting' a lot of traction with the race angle."

Pearce scowled at the opposite car at an intersection. "The others get anything from the families?"

"Prentiss and Reid said the Caradines were distraught, but handling it, and didn't have anything to add. They weren't home – and the kid who was supposed to walk Rufus home left him at school."

"So there's nothing doing there," she nodded, then shook her head. "That's a hell of a thing to carry with you for the rest of your life. Being the person who didn't watch a neighbour kid close enough and got them killed."

"It's not his fault," Dave argued, but without any great conviction.

They both knew perfectly well that it wouldn't feel like that to the kid – and that Pearce didn't attach any blame to him at all, though probably Rufus Caradine's family would.

"Hotch and Morgan?"

"They think the little sister's holding back," he said, recalling the carefully managed frustration in Aaron's tone. "She knows more than she's sayin', but she's so freaked out about losing her brother she doesn't want to go there."

"Don't blame her," Pearce reflected. "How old is she?"

"Four."

"Christ."

"Yeah." Dave rubbed a hand over his face. Generally children were more resilient than most people thought they were, but they shouldn't have to be. "They're going to get JJ or Emily to sit down with her, once the family and the child services liaison work out a time."

"Good," Pearce said approvingly.

Both of them sighed. Dave looked out of the window. He was tired already and they'd barely got started. Maybe he was getting old.

He glanced at Pearce again.

"You know, if you ever want to talk," he began, and caught her momentary confusion and mild panic, which was quickly covered.

That woman had a past she didn't want anyone touching with a barge pole, that much was clear. But he was a friend, and that meant the offer would still be open, even if they didn't speak for years and she turned up in his retirement home and helped him drink away his last few hours. They pulled up at a stop light and she subjected him to an expression that told him she knew exactly what he was doing, it wasn't going to get him anywhere at all, but she appreciated the effort – and wasn't offended.

Which was the important thing.

Pearce laughed. "Thanks. But don't be offended if I never take you up on that."

Dave's mouth twisted into a smile. "What were you saying about isolating yourself back there?"

She laughed again. "Never been great at taking good advice," she admitted. "Call it a character flaw."

Dave regarded her for a moment out of the corner of his eye, before laughing too. Tough nut to crack, this one.

"Yeah, me neither."


	8. Peachtree City

**Took me a little longer than I wanted – apologies. Had the flu and a book launch to contend with this last week or so! Fingers crossed I can stay on track until Christmas now…**

 **Pxx**

 **0o0**

 **Essential listening: Strange Fruit, by Billie Holiday**

 **0o0**

Rossi and Pearce were the last two back. Aaron waved them over to where Chief Seward was assembling her officers, ready for a briefing.

"Bit early for a profile," Pearce remarked, helping herself to a cup of tea from the kitchenette.

"This guy will already be hunting – we have to give them something to look for, or by the time we've got ourselves sorted out another little boy will be missing," said Prentiss.

"True."

"I've made Chief Seward aware that it's only preliminary," Aaron told them.

"Did you get anything from Dylan's family?" Reid asked, as Rossi grabbed a coffee.

"Not much," Dave mused. "This is killing them."

The assembled agents made a noise of agreement. It had been the same with all three families; grief was a thing that gripped people and didn't let go. It hit everyone differently, creating its own unique forms of agony. It was a sad fact of the job that none of the team were strangers to it.

"The husband, Eric, said he remembered seeing a woman with a broken down van on their street on the day his son went missing," Pearce told them. "Even got a partial plate. I gave the details to Garcia in case the woman saw anything."

"Good," said Aaron. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. "The child services liaison has organised a meeting with the sister of the most recent victim for tomorrow afternoon."

"Man, the clock is ticking on this one – couldn't we make it sooner?" Morgan asked, but Aaron shook his head.

Although he agreed with Morgan's frustration, traumatised four year olds couldn't – and shouldn't – be rushed.

"She's back in school today," he explained. "The family didn't want to pull her out again."

"Better to miss a half day tomorrow than get taken out again with no warning just when you were settling back into it," Prentiss agreed.

"Alright, I think we're ready," said Chief Seward, coming over. "Chief Seward," she said, offering Dave and Pearce her hand to shake. "Glad you folks could come out."

"That's what we're here for, Chief," said Dave.

"Oh, Carol – please."

"Carol."

Aaron narrowed his eyes. Dave's body language had shifted ever so slightly. His friend seemed to notice, too, because when Chief Seward turned away he met Aaron's gaze, a twinkle in his eye, with a look that said 'I know, stay professional. At least until the case is done!'

Aaron shook his head, motioning for the team to take their place in front of Seward's officers.

"These folks have a preliminary profile for us – now, I know what you're gonna say," said Seward, catching their objection before it was made, "preliminary means it can change. Well, so what? We run every case we see based on available information, and change it up when the information changes. This is the same thing. This profile can give us a guide to who we're lookin' for – but it is just a guide. Don't stop what you normally do – boots on the ground is half the battle."

She nodded at Aaron.

"Okay," he began. "The victimology tells us that you're most likely looking for a black male between the ages of twenty and forty years old."

"How do you know?" asked one of the officers on the front row.

"Because all three boys showed signs of sexual assault, we know that the person we're looking for is sexually motivated," Reid explained. "With this type of offender, a statistically significant number select victims of the same race or background as themselves."

"Also, as the age of the victim goes down, with paedophiles, the age of the offender tends to go up," Pearce supplied. "So we know this isn't going to be a teenager. Also the abduction, the dumping of the body – while not especially sophisticated, they're also not naïve actions. That rules out younger, less mature offenders."

"Oh, okay. Thanks," said the officer, who was making detailed notes. Aaron wondered if she was intending to apply to the Bureau outreach programme in the next couple of years.

"These kids are being taken during the day – the first two in the afternoon, while Charles Colson went missing in the morning," said Prentiss. "This tells us that this guy is either unemployed or has a variable shift pattern that allows him to be out on the street during the day without being missed at work."

"The boys were all given Zolpidem prior to their deaths," said Dave. "Now, given the evidence of physical trauma during their abduction it's unlikely that the unsub was worried about them suffering. Hanging somebody in a tree – even a child – is a very physical activity. Even if the child was bound – and we did find evidence of restraints – they're going to fight if they work out what's happening."

"The fact that there are no defensive wounds to their hands bears this out," Prentiss put in. "They were likely restrained the entire time they were with the unsub."

"Which suggests our guy has a physical limitation of some kind," Dave went on, nodding. "A long-term injury, a chronic illness – anything that would make controlling the victims or hauling them up into the branches more difficult."

"Zolpidem is a Schedule IV controlled pharmaceutical. You can't get it over the counter or off the shelf," said Reid, picking up the thread. "It's a strong sedative prescribed for insomnia, along with other sleep disorders. It's also used as a 'no-go pill' by the United States Air Force. It's given to personnel prior to missions to help aviators and special duty personnel sleep."

Chief Seward nodded slowly. "Y'all know there's an air force base north of Atlanta?" she asked. "We get a lot of ex-military personnel and their families retirin' down here."

"They come for the golf," said another officer, eliciting a burble of quiet laughter.

"Zolpidem is addictive," said Reid. "It's possible that our unsub was exposed to this drug during his service and still takes it now in order to sleep."

"They could even be dealing with PTSD," someone near the back suggested.

"This is speculation," Aaron interrupted, before they could get too excited. "It's something we can't rule out at this stage, but it's also something we can't say for sure."

"What we do know for sure is that this unsub has access to the drug. Look for people with prescriptions for Zolpidem, or people who had a prescription that has been revoked," said Pearce. "It's not difficult to get on the black market."

"We don't have much of a problem with it here," an officer protested.

Pearce shot them a smile. "You'd be surprised what you can get over the internet," she told him.

"The way this unsub displays the bodies," Morgan began, and everyone in the room looked more uncomfortable than before, "is specific. It may be a forensic countermeasure. With everyone focussed on the connotations of a black body in a tree in Georgia they might be hoping we'll look for someone white and right wing."

"It could also speak to how this guy views his victims," Prentiss added. "He's saying they're worthless – and he's displaying them for everyone to see. Each dump site has been public and in a high-traffic area."

"He's tauntin' us," Seward guessed.

"Quite possibly."

"Given the likelihood of some physical disadvantage, the unsub is most likely using a ruse to abduct these kids," said Morgan. "Something that could coerce them to come close enough to grab or follow the unsub to a more secluded spot."

Pearce picked up. "The kind of things we've seen before are lost dogs – carrying around a leash and asking kids for help finding them, lost children, candy –"

"Does that one still work?" someone asked, from the back of the room.

"You'd be surprised," said Pearce. "Be on the lookout for any male out of place in a neighbourhood. And they'll definitely have transport."

"It's impossible to get a screaming child somewhere they don't want to be unless you can convince passers by you're related," Aaron explained. "And after the first abduction, people were on alert."

"Also, the three abduction sites and three dump sites are pretty far apart," said Reid. "They'd need a way to move them – both alive and once they're dead. Look for vans, pick-ups – cars with large trunks."

Prentiss passed a sheaf of papers to an officer on the front row. "These are community guidelines," she said. "On top of the curfew you guys have established, we're going to recommend a buddy system. Ideally, this will mean no one is walking alone, but it will at least severely limit the potential victim pool. We want you to go out into schools and talk to the kids – and their families. They need to know how to keep each other safe."

"Thank you," said Aaron.

The officers began to move off, organising themselves into small groups to tackle each task.

The team moved closer around the table. Now they had set the preliminary profile out they could work on focussing it.

Prentiss was frowning at the autopsy report for Rufus Caradine.

"What?" Aaron asked.

She looked up, surprised to find the others staring at her. "Oh, uh… Something's bothering me about the drugging."

"Go on?"

"Well, it's not a high enough dose to kill them outright, so they still asphyxiated, but it's also not light enough for the unsub to haul them up there and watch them suffer," she explained. "It's just weird."

"Maybe they're not getting the dose quite right?" Morgan suggested.

"No, I mean – maybe – but it doesn't fit with the bruising," she argued. "What are we saying, they're not strong enough to handle the kids, but they are strong enough to –" She paused, reading the notes in the report. "- break four ribs, the collarbone and the occipital bone? The coroner say they're blunt force trauma, not from falling, or being pushed against something. Direct beatings."

"It's not impossible," said Dave, but carefully, as if he were re-evaluating the information.

"What if it _is_ remorse?" Pearce speculated. "I know, sexual sadists with this level of rage don't often show signs of remorse," she said, anticipating the complaints of her colleagues' tongues. "But sometimes they do, particularly when their victims are children."

"It's a possibility," Aaron allowed. "And if that's the case, we may be looking at a preferential predator."

"Hey, Babygirl – you're on speaker," said Morgan, depositing his phone on the table.

" _Ask and you shall receive, my far-flung, sweet defenders of justice._ "

"How much coffee have you had today?" Pearce asked, with a quirk of her lips, before anyone could get started.

" _None! What are you implying_?" Garcia protested. " _You know, other than that triple shot mochachino…_ "

"You start getting the shakes, maybe you should switch it out," Prentiss advised.

"We need you to see if there is anyone who has contact with all three of the boys – teachers, youth leaders, sports coaches, Sunday school preachers…" Aaron said.

" _You're thinking someone's putting themselves into a position where they have access to children, ick,_ " Garcia confirmed. " _Okay, turning up the creep factor to eleven!_ "

"Also look for people with vans, pick-ups or vehicles with larger trunks," Dave added.

"And people who don't work during the day," Reid put in.

" _One nocturnal, unemployed or variable contract creeper with their own transport and child-related responsibilities they shouldn't have coming up. I'll even throw in previous convictions involving minors for good measure."_ She sighed. _"I hate that that includes so many people. I'll hit you back when I have something, fearless hunters!"_

"Alright," said Aaron. "All we can do now is help canvas the community, build a better picture of why these kids. Why these neighbourhoods. Let's get out there."

0o0

It had been a long, largely fruitless afternoon on the streets, followed by a long, largely fruitless evening collating information and comparing notes. Given the situation, pretty much everyone they had spoken to had wanted to help with enquiries, even the people who might usually avoid contact with the police.

That was the thing about cases involving children: criminals had kids, too.

This meant that canvassing produced a wealth of information, most of it incidental and ultimately useless to the investigation – but it all had to be catalogued and assessed, because you never know what information was useless and what wasn't. Really, they needed a whole army of Garcias and Reids just to get through the mountain of statements and written reports this kind of thing generated.

Even so, there were one or two points of interest.

"Dylan Ferris' Little League coach also coaches Charlie Colson's team on a different night," Prentiss pointed out.

"He's definitely in work over two of the three abductions, though," said Morgan. "He's a bank teller, so with all the security they have his alibi is ironclad."

"I got a parent teacher who works as a reading support coach for Rufus Caradine's class and as an art teaching assistant in Dylan's school." Grace frowned. "No, wait, ignore me. Female with an ambiguously gendered name."

"How about this," Reid suggested, skimming through a file. "There's a ranger who picks up shifts at all three woodland areas."

"All the dump sites?" Hotch asked, as everyone's ears perked up.

"Yes," said Reid. "And he has a pick-up as part of his duties."

"That could be him," said Emily, hopefully.

"Hold your horses, bambini," said Rossi, waving his statement. "Description is Caucasian and near retirement age. Doesn't fit the profile."

"Uh – yeah," said Reid, apologetically. "He was out of town for the week of the third abduction and murder. Visiting relatives in Canada."

There was a collective not-quite groan.

The trouble was, Peachtree City wasn't a big place, which meant a lot of the residents had lives that intersected – but that didn't make them guilty of anything.

"Keep digging," Hotch instructed. "Prentiss, I want you and JJ to meet with the Colson family when the family liaison arrives. Jenna Colson is keeping something back, but –"

"Don't traumatise her any more than she already is, got it."

There was silence for a few minutes as everyone absorbed the contents of the reports at a variety of different speeds. They were interrupted, at about the point when Grace was going to have to give up and go in search of refreshment and a walkabout, by JJ not quite running across the room towards them.

They hadn't seen much of their media liaison since they had arrived the day before because she had been caught up trying to stop the swarm of journalists that had descended on the police department and the houses of the three victims in order to harass the families and push the race angle, so it was a little unnerving to see her arriving at such speed.

The expression on her face boded distinctly ill.

Hotch looked up from the file in his hands, startled, as the door to the office they had been given banged open. "JJ, what –?"

"You're going to want to deal with this," she said, putting a hand up to forestall any questions. "There's been another abduction."

0o0

Jules Grayling was a mass of frayed nerves, honed into sharp relief by sheer worry. He was a single dad, he explained, and an accountant, working from home in the afternoons so he could look after his kids. He had worked all morning at one of his clients' businesses.

"I had my phone with me all the time – and it was on, I know it was," he told them, shakily accepting the plastic cup of water Grace offered him. "I don't understand why she just didn't call!"

"Take a breath, Mr Grayling, and just tell us what happened," said Hotch gently.

He nodded, clutching the water and not drinking it. "Okay – okay. Milo and Kerry stay with a neighbour when I work Saturday mornings – Eunice Jameson, two doors down. I got back, ready to take them out to lunch and – and I called round, but Eunice wasn't there. Just her son, Tyler. He was a little nervy, and said his mom had asked him to tell me she was out with my kids, and she'd be back in a little bit." He shook his head. "It's not Tyler's fault, he's twelve, you know? His mom asked him to give me a message…"

Abruptly, Grayling appeared to remember the cup in his hand and took a sip.

"So, I waited. After about half an hour I was getting' antsy, so I asked Ty when his mom said she'd be back, and he just sort of broke down and – and told me she was out lookin' for my kids. That – that – Kerry and Milo had gone out to play in the front yard and when Eunice had gone to call them in, they just weren't there. He said she'd been gone for hours, looking for them. He's out front, by the desk – he wanted to come in with me, see if you all had heard anything."

Rossi exchanged a look with Hotch over Grayling's head and disappeared out of the room.

Spencer swallowed. "She didn't report it?" he asked.

"No! It's not like her at all. I don't know why – I guess maybe she didn't want to tell me…" He rubbed a hand over his face. "But they've been gone since this morning, and nobody told me. I got in my car and drove straight here – I thought… I guess I hoped they'd be here, Milo and Kerry and Eunice, and –" He looked up at the assembled agents. "Please – please find my babies. Please. I can't – I just can't…"

"We'll do everything we can, Mr Grayling," said Chief Seward. "I'll have a car go straight to Mrs Jameson's house – can you give me her number?"

"Uh, sure," he said, fumbling with his phone. "Here, I can't – my fingers..."

"I got it," said JJ, taking the phone from him. "Eunice Jameson." She held the phone up so the Chief could see it.

"Alright," said Seward. "I'm gonna have my people out there lookin' for her and the kids – I'll ask her boy to describe her for us, don't you worry. You got a picture of them on your phone?"

"Uh, yeah – we went – we went to the lake last weekend, there's – there's a couple of pictures of them down by the shore."

"They're cute," said Seward, trying to keep the man talking and thinking. "Holy – your girl catch that thing?"

He chuckled, calming down a little. "No – it was a team effort, but Milo made her hold it because he says fish are gross."

JJ managed an encouraging smile.

"How old are they?" asked Hotch.

"Seven," he replied. "Eight this August. Twins, you know – they do everything together. Oh God, I gotta tell their grandparents! Their mom, she doesn't want anythin' to do with them – but their grandpop and gram, they love them. They live in Florida – I gotta –"

"We'll help with that," said JJ, passing his cell phone back to him. "As soon as we're done here. I promise."

"Th-thanks," he said. "I'd appreciate that."

"I'll leave you in these folks' capable hands." Chief Seward patted him on the shoulder and went out to coordinate a search.

"Mr Grayling," said Grace, as sensitively as she could, "if one of them were in trouble would the other leap to their defence?"

He looked up at her, not yet following what she might be suggesting. "Oh yeah – they got each other's backs. Thick as thieves the pair of them. Inseparable."

Spencer met her gaze. That wasn't good. With that statement, he had removed the last chance that they could be looking for one child and not two. If the unsub took Milo and Kerry objected, and caused enough of a scene that he panicked, then he would probably take them both.

And given his preference and the level of violence he had displayed in the previous abductions, that did not bode well for Kerry.

He might turn her loose, which would be the best possible outcome – for her, at least.

He might not.

"I mean, I know they're probably just lost," said Grayling, with the air of a man clutching at straws. "But with the kids going missing – I just – I just want them back."

"We completely understand," said JJ, gently, but now Grayling was looking from one to the other of them, flickers of deeper fears crossing his face.

"I mean… It can't be anything to do with those boys who were taken… can it? I mean, Kerry's gone too, and she's a girl –"

"Mr Grayling, we will do everything in our power to find your children," said Hotch, glancing at JJ to tell her he knew he was leaving her with a bad situation, and motioned for the others to follow him out of the room.

"So," said Morgan, as soon as they'd closed the door behind them. "This guy's taking girls now, too?"

"Guys are we sure this is connected?" Grace asked, guessing the direction of his thoughts. "This isn't exactly his M.O."

"If Kerry put up a fight, though," said Reid, leaving the possible consequences hanging in the air.

"We can't rule it out," Hotch told them, forestalling any further discussion. "Prentiss, I want you to get in touch with the children's mother."

"He said she didn't want anything to do with them," she said, but she was already taking down details as she spoke.

"Let's make sure she hasn't had a change of heart."

"If it is this guy," Morgan reflected, "he's already had Milo and Kerry since first thing this morning – and we know he doesn't keep them long."

"Pearce, Morgan – let's get to the Jameson house, see if anyone remembers anything." Hotch pulled out his phone, already dialling Garcia's number as he moved away. "Let's hope Kerry's presence has disrupted his timeline."

"Yeah, and that it hasn't accelerated it," said Grace, in an undertone.

Spencer nodded, sharing a long look with Morgan before he, too, departed.

"I just talked to Tyler Jameson," said Rossi, joining him. "Says his mom's been suffering memory lapses. More and more as time goes on. Doesn't want to admit it."

"He's been taking care of her," Spencer guessed, feeling the stirrings of something horribly familiar in his chest.

"Yeah," said Rossi heavily. "I'm gonna update the units out lookin' for her that she might be confused." He gave Spencer a sidelong look. "Could be we're not looking at our unsub at all on this one."

Spencer nodded, though he didn't feel like agreeing. "Memory lapses don't equate to violence," he reminded his friend.

"No, but sometimes they're a symptom of a condition which might turn violent."

Spencer sighed, which the other man accurately interpreted as resignation. Rossi left him, and Spencer shook off the unpleasant feeling of betrayal, then went to go and speak with Tyler. With any luck, his mother was simply confused.

 _Which wasn't good for Tyler, necessarily_ , he thought, miserably. _But maybe I can steer him towards the right kind of help._


	9. An Old Sad Song

**Essential listening: Georgia on My Mind, by Maverick Sabre**

 **0o0**

Peachtree City, it turned out, was home to a lot of blue vans. Eric Ferris had helped them narrow their parameters down to flatbed vans rather than pick-up trucks, and given that it was rusty, it was probably old, but that still didn't really help. It did suggest a skilled worker or labourer, though.

That still left over three hundred hits. Without anything further to go on, they had divided the names and addresses between them and half of Chief Seward's staff and gone out to pound the pavement.

It was good, in a way, to get back to some good, old fashioned policing, Grace felt. It was how she had started out, and in some ways she missed it, as exciting as working for the BAU could be. Investigations here tended to be short and sharp; they were often brought in when things had got to a point where they could no longer be avoided, and then a lot of what her old Guv' would have thought of as the 'proper' work had been done. It was this kind of work that laid the foundation for a profile. Just as you couldn't psychoanalyse behaviour if none had been observed, you couldn't narrow down names and addresses if you didn't gather them first.

She pulled up to the kerb beside the last property on her list.

Normally, they would be out in pairs for this kind of work – Hotch didn't like to take chances – but the pressure of the ticking clock had forced them to be a little more flexible this time, and with JJ dealing with the press, Reid on the geographic profile, and Hotch and Prentiss left at the station to keep an eye on the Colson family while they waited for the child liaison to arrive, there just weren't enough of them to get the work done before...

Grace glanced at her father's pocket watch. They had a little under forty hours before Milo Grayling would be strung up from a tree somewhere nearby, and Gods only knew what was happening to his twin sister.

The path to the door of the little house was swept clean and bordered on each side by a neat but slightly anaemic looking lawn, cropped so short in places the soil was showing through. The house was old and reasonably well-kept, though the white paint on the siding was beginning to flake a little under the onslaught of the unforgiving Georgia weather. The net door had seen better days, too, though it had obviously been repaired quite recently – and well.

Everything about the property told her the people who lived here were poor and thrifty, and took pride in their home and how it was presented.

The vehicle that had brought Grace to their door was not on the drive, though there was a lighter patch on the concrete there as if a car or van was regularly in residence.

She knocked smartly on the door; a policeman's knock – insistent and polite, but not the one that said 'we're coming in and we have a battering ram if you don't answer'. This was a knock that said, 'excuse me' and wiped its feet on the mat, and made polite conversation in between interview questions.

For a minute or two there was silence, and Grace had been beginning to think no one was home, but then the inner door opened just a crack. A woman's face appeared on the other side, looking worried.

"Hello?"

"Good afternoon," said Grace, attempting to look friendly. "My name's Agent Grace Pearce, I'm with the FBI." She showed her the badge through the net door.

The woman gaped at it. "FBI?"

"Yes Ma'am. Are you Harriet Dodds?"

"Uh, yes – that's my name, Ma'am."

The woman looked almost fearful, which was concerning. But then, when people found out you were FBI they started imagining all kinds of things.

"We're trying to track down the owner of a blue van – do you think I could come in?"

"Um…" The woman glanced behind her, uncertainly.

"It will only take a few minutes, Ma'am," Grace assured her. "Then I'll let you get back to your day."

"Alright, sure," said the woman, opening the door wider and undoing the latch on the screen door. "Come on in."

"Thank you."

The inside of the house was much like the outside: orderly, a little elderly, and Spartan. Grace got a glimpse of a few photographs on the mantelpiece before she followed the woman into the kitchen, which – like the rest of the house – was scrupulously clean.

"Can I offer you something to drink, Agent Pearce?" the woman asked.

Grace allowed herself to smile, though something about the way she had said it felt wrong – as though she was reading from a script. She looked tired, too, like she hadn't slept in a week.

"No, thank you."

The look of worry resurfaced, her dark skin looked almost sickly in the pale gloom of the kitchen. "I have lemonade, or tea – if you like tea."

"Neither, thank you," Grace replied. "I've just had a drink, actually," she lied. There was something off here. "But thanks."

"Oh… alright."

Harriet clasped and unclasped her hands.

"Our records show that there is a blue 1996 Ford Transit van registered to this property?" she said, making the statement into a question since the woman didn't seem inclined for conversation.

She glanced at the registration number, which seemed oddly familiar – though she had no idea why.

"Oh, um, yes Ma'am. That's my brother's van," she said, still moving her hands distractedly.

 _What are you afraid of?_ Grace wondered. _Your brother?_

She narrowed her eyes very slightly, and the woman flinched.

 _So, you're hyperaware, too_ …

There were no bruises, or obvious signs of abuse, but Harriet herself was giving off such an obvious sense of wrongness that Grace thought she understood. No photographs of Harriet on the mantel, just her brother. It was as if she had been erased from her own life. Minimised.

"Your brother's name is Noah Dodds?" Grace asked, one eye on Harriet as she checked her notes.

"Yes, that's right," she said. "Noah's at work."

"What does he do?" Grace asked lightly.

"He fixes things over at the golf course."

"I think I saw his handy work around here, too," said Grace, with an encouraging smile. "You and your brother keep a very tidy house."

Harriet began to smile. "Thank you," she said, with a little bit of pleasure.

"How long have you had the car?"

"Four – no, five years," Harriet replied.

"Is Noah the only one who drives it?"

"I can drive," said the woman, with a strange amount of pride. "I mean – I don't," she added very quickly – too quickly. "Noah's the only one with shore-ance."

She said the word so very carefully; too carefully, like she was uncertain about it.

 _Learning difficulties?_ Grace wondered.

"And he works during the day?"

"Yes, Ma'am. He works very hard."

"I bet he does. Is it just the two of you?"

"Uh-huh," she said, with a little bob of the head. "Dad died when Noah was on his last tour. He came home to look after me."

"He's a veteran?"

"Yes Ma'am."

"You must be very proud of him."

"I am."

Again, there was that uncertainty in the way she spoke. It made Grace's copper's instinct sit up and take notice.

"Do you have the registration documents?" she asked.

Not strictly necessary, but it might give her the opportunity to look around a bit more.

"I – uh – I don't know. I could look, if you like?"

"If you would," said Grace. "Then we can cross you off our list."

Harriet nodded. "Alright. I – I think they're through here."

Grace followed her through to the lounge, where she began to rummage through the drawers in a dresser. Behind her, Grace glanced at the photographs; there were one or two of what must be their father, but the rest were of Noah; in each one he stood ramrod straight – like he was on parade – and glowering into the camera.

It was as if he didn't know how to smile at all.

0o0

The little girl sat neatly at the table, dressed in her best clothes, as if she was going to church. Perhaps they had been there earlier, Emily mused, watching her through the glass.

Jenna Colson was chewing the inside of her mouth, inexpertly braiding the hair of the doll in her lap, and – it seemed to Emily – trying to present herself as perfectly calm for the benefit of her rather fidgety parents, both of whom were hovering around their daughter. The child services liaison was briefing them, but Emily wasn't certain they were taking a great deal of it in.

"You sure about this?" Chief Seward asked, just behind her.

"Yes," said Hotch. "She's holding something back, but she's smart. And ultimately, if she can help save someone it might help her deal with the pain of losing her brother."

"If you say so," said the Chief. "I ain't great with kids, so I'll watch, if you don't mind?"

"That's fine," said Hotch, with the kind of micro-smile that most people missed, but that years of working with him had taught Emily meant he was pleased that someone had a good handle on their own strengths – and weaknesses.

Jenna's parents – Mark and Cathy – looked up when Emily and Hotch let themselves in, but Jenna didn't. Instead, she looked at their shoes.

 _Interesting,_ Emily thought. _Now, is that a shyness coping mechanism she had from before, or is that a relic of the more recent trauma?_

 _Maybe she just likes shoes._

"Hello," said Hotch. "Thank you for agreeing to speak with us again." He shook their hands, and Emily noted the lines of grief painted across the young parents' faces. "And you must be Miss Beck."

The gentle looking woman from child services smiled and nodded. "Agent Hotchner," she said, in greeting.

"This is Agent Prentiss," Hotch said, and Emily shook the parents' hands, too.

"I'm sorry for your loss," she said, and then turned her attention to the little girl, confidant that Hotch would handle the others. "Hi there. You're doing a great job with that doll's hair."

Two dark eyes looked up at Emily. "'nk you," she said shyly.

"She got a name?"

There was a pause as Jenna looked down at the doll in her lap, blinked, and looked back up at Emily. "Clarissa." She spoke with a very slight lisp.

Emily smiled. "That's a good name."

The corner of Jenna's mouth twitched up, which Hotch decided to take advantage of.

"Hello again, Jenna," he said, in that voice he reserved for small children. It was kinder, somehow, and didn't make whoever was being interviewed want to crawl into a hole and never come back out. "Do you remember me?"

The shy, unwavering gaze shifted to him. "You came to talk about Charlie," she said.

"That's right," he said. "Would it be alright for Emily and I to sit with you and talk for a little bit?"

"You don't have to do anything you don't want to, honey," the child services liaison said, managing to say it in a way that didn't sound like Jenna ought to be put off, but that also made it clear she could say no if she wanted to.

"Is that okay, baby?" her mother asked, a protective hand resting on her head.

"'kay," said Jenna.

"Thank you," said Hotch.

Emily took a seat across from the girl, while her parents sat behind her, where she could reach for them if she needed to. They were obviously worried for her, and obviously trying very hard not to interrupt. Hotch and Miss Beck had taken them through the process at length, and warned them how easy it could be for someone to inadvertently put a description in her head if they were too intent on talking for her. They were eager to help in any way they could now they knew yet another family was going through the same agony as they were.

They chatted for several minutes about inconsequential things – dolls, games, the things Jenna liked at school. It was frustrating but necessary, winding their way slowly towards the questions they needed to ask. Questions that would get them one step closer to the unsub – and one step closer to wherever Milo and Kerry Grayling were hopefully still both being kept.

But they didn't want to scare her, or make her clam up.

In the end, though, after telling them all about learning to dance in an after school club, she brought the subject up herself.

"Charlie was going to come watch me," she said, looking sad. "I miss him."

"Jenna, do you remember the day Charlie was taken away?" Emily asked.

She chewed the inside of her mouth a little, but she nodded.

"Can you tell me?"

"Mommy and Daddy needed milk and juice, so we went to the Seven-Eleven store," she said, toying with the doll again. "It's just at the end of our street."

"Wow, that's such a grown up thing to do," Emily told her, and the little girl couldn't help but preen a little. "Can you remember seeing anyone outside the store?"

"Just Mr Parker, who lives in the house with the flowers round the door," she said. "And his dog – it's a Dalmatian. They're spotty," she added, in case it was important.

"So they are," said Emily, and this time Jenna's smile was more like a reward. "Were there any cars parked outside?"

She shook her head, then frowned. "No. Yes – there was a big, black car, but it drove away when we were walking over."

"That's really good – you're doing so well," Hotch encouraged. "Did you and Charlie go straight in the shop?"

"Yes," she said, and Emily believed her.

"What did you go to look at in the shop first?"

"Mommy gave us money for candy, so we went there," said Jenna. She was very definite about candy. "Charlie wanted Reese's Pieces. I got strawberry twists."

"Strawberry twists are my favourite," Emily confided in her.

"Mine too!"

"What did you do after that?"

"We went and got the milk and the juice. Charlie let me pay the teller," she added, proudly.

"And then you went outside?"

"Yes," she said, with a worried frown.

Clearly, they were getting to the bit of the story she was most frightened of.

"When you went out of the door, what could you see?" Hotch asked. "Mr Parker and his Dalmatian?"

"No," she said. "He wasn't there no more. There was…" she hesitated and her lower lip quavered. "There was an evil witch."

Emily shared a look with Hotch; his expression suggested she hadn't said this in the first interview.

Mark Colson, sitting behind his daughter, shifted and cross his arms. "You shouldn't tell stories that aren't true," he said, and Jenna looked at him.

"But it _is_ true," she insisted.

Over her head, Hotch caught her father's eye, warning him to be quiet.

"What did she look like?" Emily asked. "Was she green and covered in warts?"

Jenna shook her head. "No. She had a yellow dress. It had orange flowers on it."

"Did she have a broom?" Hotch asked.

"No. Not all witches ride broomsticks, silly," she told him, and he smiled slightly.

"Of course, silly of me," he replied gently. "What do they have instead?"

Jenna looked back at the doll in her lap.

"Blue vans," she said – mostly to Clarissa. "And long knifes."

0o0

"She's disassociating," said Hotch, when they had left the young family to recoup after the interview. "She says it's an evil witch – evil witches take children in stories."

"Not an evil wizard," Emily observed. "And they were wearing a dress. I know clothes don't equate to gender, but…"

"But she's definitely saying a woman took her brother," Hotch finished, nodding.

"We didn't profile that," Emily pointed out, flatly.

"No." Hotch pursed his lips. "It could be an accomplice…" He sighed. "Or she could be dissociating entirely, and she's imagined a witch because she's too afraid of the unsub."

Emily looked through the window, where Mark and Cathy Colson were hugging their one remaining child.

"How do we find out which is which?" she asked. "No pun intended."

Hotch was quiet for a moment, thinking. "Let's get her to sit down with a forensic artist," he said at last. "Children are imaginative, but they find it hard to maintain that level of detail. In the meantime, get Garcia cross checking the names she has already generated against owners or renters of blue vans."

0o0

Spencer looked up as JJ stalked in, closed the door behind her with a definite snap and sank into one of the chairs, slinging an arm across her face. He glanced towards the main doors of the police department over her head, where he could still see the many-headed mass that was the media, milling about outside, then went to make his friend a coffee.

"Thanks," she said, putting her hand around the mug without even moving the arm from over her eyes. "Uh – you know, I love my job, but some days…"

"Are they still going after the – um – the race angle?" he asked, curious.

JJ grunted. "And then some. Uh, apparently there are closet members of the KKK all over Peachtree City, who're starting a new race war."

Spencer frowned. "If they keep on like that, that's exactly what they're gonna have."

"Try telling _them_ that," she complained, waving in the direction of the windows. She emerged from under her arm and looked over at the little room the Colson family were sitting in. "How're they doing?" she asked.

Spencer followed her gaze. "I think Jenna's holding up better than her parents."

"Kids are way more resilient than we expect them to be," said JJ.

"I sent Jules Grayling home," Spencer told her, after a moment. "I got a family liaison to go with him."

"Good call," JJ nodded. "Nothing for him to do here except sit and worry, and he might as well do that from his own house."

"Plus, if we're lucky and the unsub releases Kerry, and she finds her way home…" Spencer began.

"He'll be waiting for her when she gets there," JJ finished.

She fell silent and Spencer went back to studying the autopsy files, a frown furrowing his forehead.

"I just can't help thinking," she said, after the coffee had had a chance to kick in, "how I'd feel if it were Henry."

Spencer looked at her. Her voice had been unusually quiet, as if she hadn't necessarily intended to speak aloud. "JJ, that's never gonna happen."

"Never?" she queried, shooting him an almost furtive look. "I bet these kids' families thought that, too."

"We won't let it," he said, with unusual ferocity. No way would he let someone like this unsub get his hands on his Godson.

"They probably said that, too," said JJ, gazing sadly over at the Colson family once more.

"Um…" Spencer bit his lip. That was true enough, and doubtless they had been convinced their little boys would be safe, but it was unthinkable that the same fate might befall little Henry. "They weren't FBI," he said firmly, putting a hand on his friend's shoulder.

"I know – and I know he's probably safe," she said, looking gratefully up at him. He took a seat beside her, arm still half around her shoulder. "But the things we see – the work we do… Uh, it's just different now that I'm a mom."

"I – uh – I can't even imagine," he said, ducking his head. "But, um… You know we'd all move heaven and earth for Henry." He gave her an encouraging smile. "He's family."

She smiled back. "I know."

He nodded and withdrew to the table, glad he could make her feel a little more grounded.

"Okay, that's what's wrong with me," said JJ, after a minute or two. "What's eating you?"

He looked up, surprised. "Nothing – um…" Spencer's eyes fell back to the files in front of him. "It's – it's just what Emily was saying about the drugging not making sense. She's right. If we're looking at a rage induced sexual sadist – which – uh – based on the violence the boys suffered, is definitely the case – then drugging the victims before killing them make no sense at all, even if the unsub has a disability. But…"

"But?" JJ asked, joining him.

"But… if this is a dominant unsub with a subservient accomplice, then it begins to make more sense," he went on. "The accomplice doesn't want the children to suffer."

"If they don't want the children to suffer, why don't they just release them?"

"Maybe they can't," he argued. "They're probably just as afraid of this guy as the kids are. If they want to try to stop them suffering – any more than they already have – but they can't not dispose of the children, a subservient accomplice is more likely to drug them before stringing them up."

"So… Jenna isn't disassociating," JJ gasped. "It really was a woman in a yellow dress who took her brother. Hey," she said suddenly. "Didn't Grace and Rossi say the woman in the blue van – the witness we're trying to trace – was on the street the day of the first boy's abduction? What if she's not a witness at all?"

"Our profile is wrong," said Spencer, turning to the board. "He could work anywhere or at any time – he's got this woman abducting them for him. I gotta call Hotch."

0o0

"Well, thank you for confirming your details," said Grace, as Harriet Dodds carefully put the vehicle documents away.

She was resisting the urge to edge towards the door. The wrongness of the house was getting to her. The registration details didn't match those Eric Ferris, but there was something so very off here it was practically screaming at her.

If nothing else, she would have to ask Chief Seward to keep an eye on the household; she had a strong intuition that this woman was being physically and emotionally abused by her brother, possibly as a result of undiagnosed and untreated PTSD. But then, he wasn't even smiling in the photographs from when he was a teenager.

Perhaps the abuse dated back to their childhood; their father, maybe.

Still, speculation aside, she didn't want to spend too much longer here – not alone, anyway.

"Noah always says I ought to be polite," said Harriet, turning back around.

 _I bet he does._

"Manners maketh man," said Grace, keeping an easy smile on her face.

"That's what he says," said Harriet. "He's a good man, Agent Pearce. He takes good care of me. Always has."

 _That would be easier to believe_ , Grace thought, _if you weren't trembling with fear._

Aloud, she said, "He sounds very kind," watching the way Harriet's eyes darted about."

"No, not kind," said Harriet, with a strange frown on her face. "Sometimes I get things wrong, and he has to remind me…"

Grace bit her lip. "Harriet, if he ever hurts you, you know you can ask for help."

"No, no – I'm bad, I'm wrong. He has to remind me how to behave." She was shaking now, as if she feared her brother would come out of the walls and strike her.

"No, he doesn't – he doesn't have any right to hurt you," Grace assured her. "Everyone makes mistakes now and then, that doesn't mean –"

But Harriet wasn't listening. "I'm a good girl. I am – I promise I am –" she cried, eye wide and wild. "Noah loves me!"

Grace's gaze fell on the bulge in the pocket of her yellow dress. There was something long in there, and thin, and… sharp?

"No, you're quite right," she said, taking a step back towards the front door. "You're a good girl."

It would be a risk, turning her back on her, but she'd have to open the door in order to get out to the SUV. It wasn't far, and Grace would have surprise on her side, and years of police and FBI training – but Harriet had fear and rage and the keen edge of crazy. She couldn't be sure she would be quick enough.

"I am! I do as I am told!"

 _I'm going to have to use magic,_ she thought. _In front of an already disturbed woman. Hotch is going to kill me._

Harriet was beginning to wrench at her own hair, clearly in great distress.

 _If she doesn't kill me first._

"I'm going to go now, Harriet," said Grace, in a soothing voice. "You're a very good girl, and your brother loves you, and I'm going to go."

She heard the floorboard creak a split second before he spoke, and the bottom fell out of her stomach.

"No, Agent Pearce, I don't think you are."

Her vision swam and she cried out in pain as the lump of wood hit the back of her head. She didn't even have time to reach for her gun. She fell to her knees, clutching her skull.

 _My phone_ – she thought, through the red haze of pain. _I've got to – I've got to –_

But it was hard to think. It was hard to see. A pair of sturdy work boots strode out from behind her, swinging a length of two-by-four. There was a patch of red on it. Blood.

 _My blood,_ thought Grace, feeling suddenly sick.

She watched groggily as the wood swung out of her gaze, raised high in the air by Harriet's unsmiling brother.

 _Fuck._


	10. Beware the Faceless

**Essential listening: Complicated Situation, by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club**

 **0o0**

"Thank you very much, Jenna, you've been very helpful," said Frank Little, one of the local forensic artists. "I'll get this digitised," he said in an aside to Spencer as he left the room.

Spencer nodded.

"You guys are good to go," he told the Colson family. "Thank you so much for coming in and helping us out." He gave Jenna an especially awkward smile and she fixed an unnerving stare on his face.

"Is it true more kids have been taken away, same as Charlie?" she asked.

"Um…" he said, glancing at her parents.

"I heard Mommy and Daddy talking," she explained, fiddling with the doll she was carrying.

"Oh, honey," said Cathy Colson, squatting down beside her daughter. "We didn't want to frighten you."

"'m not frightened, Mommy," she said, and patted her mother's hair. "'m mad! The nasty lady took Charlie away, and now she's taken someone else."

"Yes," said Spencer, remembering how much he'd hated being treated like a child when something was important. "We're going to do everything we can to find her, get those kids home and stop her ever taking anyone else away ever again. Uh – and you coming and talking to us about what you remembered, and sitting with the forensic artist – that's going to help us do that. We couldn't do any of it without the help you've given us." He dug in the pocket of his satchel. "In fact," he said, pulling out one of the FBI buttons that was still in there from the recruitment drive he'd had to take part in in the autumn. "I'd say you've earned this."

Spencer handed the button to Mark, who gave him a watery smile and pinned the badge to his daughter's blouse.

"Okay?" her mom asked.

She touched it reverently and offered up a small smile. "'kay."

"Thank you," Cathy Colson mouthed, as she walked her daughter out.

"If she remembers anything else – anything at all, even if you don't think it's important, call us," he said, and handed Mark his card.

"I will." He looked at his shoes for a moment, and suddenly all the grief he had been holding at bay was a lot closer to the surface. They had only buried Charlie a day or two before. "Doctor Reid, you – you see kids who go through trauma all the time, right?"

"Yes… uh, yes I do," he said, guessing where this was going.

"Do they – I mean… are they – are they okay?" he asked. "You know, later on?"

"Uh… I tend not to deal with people after," he said, carefully omitting 'unless they turn up in a case', "but, I know it's gonna be hard for her – and for you."

"I just couldn't bear to lose her, too," the other man said. "Not after…"

"Just be there for her when she needs you," Spencer advised. "Let her grieve, let her write letters to her brother if she needs to. Support her, but don't smother her. And – uh – this is the big one – take care of yourselves, too. I know that's hard to hear, um…"

Mark Colson managed a slight smile. "No… actually you're right."

"Maybe her coming in to help us will make some of this more about saving someone else, rather than losing her brother," Spencer offered.

 _Assuming we find them._

Both men looked up when Jenna Colson walked back up to them and held something out for Spencer to take. It turned out to be a sticker with a shiny gold star on it, which said 'Good Work!' in cartoon, bubble letters. She must have won it at nursery or school.

"Is – um, is this for me?"

She nodded. "Swapsies," she said, her hand briefly going to the button on her blouse.

"Thank you," said Spencer, though his throat felt rather thick, so he wasn't sure how, and let her stick the sticker on his tie.

She nodded and took her father's hand. "Daddy, you're taking Mommy to _Mimi's_ because you're both sad. And that's okay, but you don't have to stop doing things that make you happy just because you're sad."

He watched her lead the man out of the department, still fingering the gold star affixed (rather loosely) to his tie, wondering at the wisdom of small children.

"You okay?" JJ asked, joining him.

"Um… I think I might be a little bit in love with that four year old," he admitted, blushing slightly.

JJ laughed. "Don't let anyone else hear you say that," she advised. "They'll get ideas."

He showed her the gold star, which wasn't particularly sticky anymore, then put it safely in his satchel.

"Oh, that's adorable," JJ said, when he'd explained.

"I know, right?"

"Speaking of adorable, I just got off the phone with Garcia. I'm pretty sure she's hooked up some kind of intravenous caffeine drip."

Despite himself, Spencer snorted. "What's she got?" he asked as he followed his friend back to their makeshift work area.

"After Jenna told us about the 'wicked witch', Hotch told her to look through any mentions of a woman hanging around the area on the day of, or leading up to, the previous abductions. She sent through all the statements she found."

"I'll start looking through them," he said, wearily. Although he enjoyed a good paper trail as much as anyone else, the longer this took, the less time Milo and Kerry had.

"I have to head back outside," JJ told him, apologetically. "Try to keep a lid on things. But the others should be back soon. Anyone called in?" she asked, without a great deal of hope.

Spencer shook his head. "Nope."

As he sat down his cell phone buzzed and he answered it. "Hey Garcia – I'm just starting to look at the statements you pulled, now."

" _Aw, bless you, hot stuff,"_ she said, and he raised an eyebrow, thinking JJ might be quite right about the amount of caffeine their technical goddess had lately ingested. _"I was just calling to say my list of ne'er do wells is still pretty long – are there more parameters for me to plug in?"_

"Not… as yet," said Spencer, balancing the phone on his shoulder as he shuffled through the files looking for the statement numbers Garcia had highlighted. "Uh – though you know some of the original parameters are gonna be wrong, now – if this guy is working with an accomplice our estimation of his work time is going to be out."

Garcia made a noise of disgruntlement.

"Listen, has anyone called you yet?"

" _Since they all went out looking for our 'wicked witch'?"_

"Mmm," Spencer grunted, unable to think about anyone other than Grace when that particular description came up. And that association was problematic at best.

" _Nope. Nada."_

"Okay – well, they're gonna be back soon – you probably have about a twenty minute window to get food."

" _Oh, Spencer – you're so sweet,"_ she replied, laughing. _"We gotta get you a girl to take advantage of your cuteness. Or a guy. Whichever, I don't judge."_

"Um… I'm good, actually," he said automatically. These days he generally stopped listening when his colleagues started hypothesising about his love life.

Garcia, however, misunderstood entirely. _"Ooh, that's something I want to know all about when you get back!"_

"No, that's – that's not –"

" _Consider yourself on interrogation notice, boy wonder!"_ She giggled. _"You were right about food, though – can't be a warrior for karma on an empty stomach! Garcie out!"_

He groaned.

0o0

Over half his team were clustered around the board when Derek walked back in, empty handed, after checking his allotted handful of addresses for the elusive blue van. Knowing that the woman driving it might be an accomplice rather than a witness changed everything; everything except the fact that she seemed to have dropped off the face of the planet.

"Hey," he said, shrugging off his jacket. "That the picture Jenna helped come up with?"

"Yeah," said Prentiss, moving out of the way so he could see. "Look like anyone on your circuit?"

"Nah," he said, after studying it for a moment. "Struck out on vans, too."

He took a picture of the forensic sketch with his cell phone.

"Ditto," said Prentiss.

Rossi nodded. "Likewise."

"Either they've got the van off road somewhere, hidden, or Jenna's misremembering," said Hotch, who was reading files over Reid's shoulder – always a bit of a task since the kid read so quickly.

"It's possible," Rossi speculated. "A kid that young, going through a trauma – she might imagine details she think will help."

"Yeah, but look at the sketch," Hotch argued. "A child her age can't keep up that level of detail for a forensic sketch artist – they're trained to know when someone is being deliberately vague."

"If we accept the sketch, then we accept this woman as an accomplice," Rossi reminded them. "Is that what we're saying?"

"We need to rework the profile," said Hotch. He glanced around and pulled out his cell. "I'll call Pearce."

"I thought I was the last one in," said Derek, surprised. He'd spent the last thirty minutes sitting in traffic, sorely tempted to stick on the lights and sirens in order to get back. He'd assumed everyone would have beaten him back by a mile.

"It rang through to voicemail," said Hotch.

"Guys, I think I have something that backs up the woman as an accomplice," said Reid; the others turned to look. Up until now he'd been pretty quiet, assimilating the contents of the reports at the speed of light, as only he could. "These statements Garcia pulled – there's multiple sightings of a slim black woman around the time of each abduction. Some of them in the area the boys were abducted from several days beforehand."

Derek gave a low whistle. "She's scopin' them out – that's a greater level of organisation than we predicted."

"And listen to this," Reid continued, "all the descriptions match the forensic sketch – tall, slim, short hair; close cropped hair, in her thirties, thin, tired-looking; tall, worn-down, mid-thirties."

"Any mention of the van?" Rossi asked.

"Yeah – on no less than…" He flicked rapidly through the pages. "Six out of fourteen occasions. They all describe it as blue, faded, rusty… Um, but no one has much of the license plate."

"Except Eric Ferris," Prentiss mused.

"Could be worth talkin' to him again," said Rossi, taking a few steps away. "I'll call him, see if he's willing to come in."

Hotch nodded, and tried Pearce again.

"So, we have a dominant male unsub and a subservient female?" Derek asked, leaning on the desk across from Reid.

"Looks that way," said Prentiss.

"He's forcing her to abduct them – what, as a forensic countermeasure?" Derek asked. "To distance himself from the crime."

"That's possible," said Hotch, his cell still pressed to his face. "He wants to use and abuse these boys, but doesn't want to have anything to do with the abduction and disposal. Could be a way of dehumanising them."

"Assuming he doesn't help her dump them," Prentiss put in. "She could be lying to him about the drugs."

"Tch-yeah," Reid scoffed. "The kids were given so high a dose of Zolpidem there's no way she'd be able to pass that off as anything else. They'd be unconscious."

"She could tell him they're unconscious from the beatings," she suggested, but shook her head after a moment. "No, you're right. More likely he leaves the dirty work to her."

"Eric Ferris has agreed to come in and sit with our forensic artist," said Rossi, waving his phone. "Should be with us in about an hour."

"Good," said Hotch.

"Pearce?" Rossi asked.

"No, rang out again." Hotch frowned down at his cell, hanging up. "She must still be talking to someone."

"This accomplice. We know she's organised, if she's checking out the areas before each abduction, but not too organised," said Derek. "None of the kids were taken during their daily routines. They were all chance abductions – buying milk at the grocery store, playing in the yard, out on the street with their friends, walking home un-chaperoned. That's opportunistic."

"So, what are we saying?" Reid asked, sitting forward. "Intelligent enough to do a little planning, but not much more?"

"Looks that way." Derek nodded.

"So, we're looking at someone with a high school education, maybe a little less," said Rossi.

Prentiss chewed the end of her pen, thoughtfully. "And if she's picking out the victims for him, that explains the lack of a stalking element."

"And makes the dominant unsub less likely to be seeking out jobs or responsibilities that give him contact with kids," Hotch added.

"If she's out during the day, watching and abducting the kids, she might be unemployed or work nights," Derek reasoned. "But that really opens up the kind of work he could do."

"She has the van during the day," said Prentiss. "So, does he have access to another vehicle as well?"

"Good question," said Rossi. "A golf cart, maybe? Everyone else around here seems to have one."

"We're speculating," said Hotch, gently steering the conversation back on track. "We need to have Garcia open up her search to include blue vans owned by female drivers, or those with female drivers on the insurance."

Derek punched in her number. "Hey Babygirl," he greeted.

" _Well, if it isn't my chocolate ray of sunshine."_

He smirked, privately quite glad he hadn't put her on speaker. "I need you to work some magic, Mama."

" _Oh, for you, sugar? Anything."_

"Blue vans again, but open it up to vans registered to or insured by female drivers."

" _Way ahead of you,"_ she said. _"I guessed we were heading that way when Reid said you were looking at a female accomplice. Either that, or I'm psychic. Still over a hundred and forty hits."_

"I'm puttin' you on speaker. Can you exclude anyone we've already visited?"

" _No creepers, huh? That makes a change!"_

"Yeah, we all struck out – except Pearce. She's not back yet." He could practically hear Garcia sit up straighter. "Nuh-uh, don't go thinkin' like that. She's probably sittin' in traffic – the same as I was for half an hour."

" _She better be,"_ Garcia grumbled. _"Ninety-three. Got anything else?"_

"Most serial killer teams are related," Rossi pointed out. "Cousins, brothers, half-brothers, parents with children. They need a level of trust you don't often see outside of the family."

" _Multiple adult family members with access to the vehicles, gotcha,"_ said Garcia, typing fast. _"Takes it down to forty-seven. Good call."_

"Exclude anyone where the women with access to the car work full-time," Reid suggested.

" _Twenty."_

"Older model vans?" Prentiss put in. "I mean, if it's rusty and faded…"

" _Six."_

"Now that's more like it," Derek exclaimed, feeling hopeful.

Hotch said, "Limit it to women with no more than a high school education."

" _That would be… uh, a big, fat zero, sorry sir,"_ said Garcia, sounding as surprised as Derek felt.

"None at all?" asked Prentiss, sounding surprised.

" _Nope."_

There was a moment of pensive silence.

"Okay… take off the family insured vans – they may be related, but using different names," Hotch suggested.

" _Um… back up to thirty-four."_

"Guys, we're assuming the van is registered," Reid pointed out. "I mean, uh, if he's clever enough to convince someone else to abduct his victims – and dispose of them – he's clever enough to switch out the plates. And that's assuming they're using their own names."

"So, we got nothing?" Derek asked, one eye on the ticking clock.

"No – we might not have a name, but we know more about this duo than before," said Hotch. "We need to get back to the drawing board."

Emily groaned. "Maybe Grace had more luck," she suggested.

"More luck finding the witness who might not be a witness?" JJ asked, coming back in.

"Yeah," said Derek. "We struck out on the van – and we're still waitin' on Pearce."

"I'll call her," she offered. "Better than refereeing those jokers out front," she grumbled, as she dialled.

"Yeah, I had the radio on in the car on the way over," Derek told them. "They're really ampin' it up. They had some crazy callers on and they were stirrin' with everything they had."

"Urgh, I hate journalists," Prentiss complained.

"Huh, that's weird," said JJ. "It rang out."

Derek frowned.

 _Well, that ain't good…_

"That's the third time," said Reid, slowly.

The assembled agents looked at one another.

"It's probably fine," said Prentiss, frowning.

"Call her again," Rossi told JJ.

Garcia interrupted. _"Wait, am I hearing this right?"_

"Hold on, Momma," Derek told her.

" _But you said she was fine!"_

Derek's frown deepened. "Hold your horses, Penelope, we don't know she's not."

 _Yet._

"It went straight to voicemail," said JJ, hanging up with a frown.

This time, Reid pulled out his cell and dialled her number. A prickle of concern travelled up the back of Derek's neck.

"It was ringin' out before," he said tensely, clutching the back of the chair.

He watched as the kid went pale, licked his lips, bit them and then hung up. Everyone in the room had been so quiet they'd heard her voicemail kick in, and the extra seconds he had waited for her to respond, just in case.

"Voicemail," said Reid, in a voice that was slightly higher than usual.

"It wasn't before," said JJ, again.

"Nor when I called," said Hotch.

"Her battery coulda died," said Derek, but the cold feeling in the pit of his stomach disagreed.

Rossi coughed. "It's like someone turned it off."

There was a moment – just a moment – of perfect silence, before everybody started moving.

Derek thumped the table. Prentiss swore. Reid sprung from his chair, knocking files to the floor; nobody paid them any mind.

"We can't be sure," said Hotch, as JJ practically sprinted out of the room to get Chief Seward. "But we have to check. Garcia, get onto the phone company, see if you can –"

" _Triangulate which cell tower she was near to before the phone went –"_ She paused and audibly changed the word she had been about to use. _"Before the phone got switched off. Got you. Call you back as soon as."_

She hung up and Derek grabbed his cell off the table. Chief Seward stuck her head around the door, JJ right behind her, the expression on both women's faces tense and sober.

"Is Agent Jareau yankin' my chain? One of your agents is missin'?" she asked briskly.

"She's not yanking anything," said Rossi.

"Yes," Hotch told her. "Agent Pearce. Chief, we'll need to send people out to the addresses she visited."

"Right," said Seward, straightening up. "I'll pull some officers back in and send them out to the ones you don't have covered – she had ten, same as the others, yeah?"

"Yes."

The Chief nodded and hurried away, not wasting time on needless words.

"JJ, make sure the press don't get wind of this," Hotch instructed, and JJ nodded.

"Just find her," she said. "I'll be here if she calls in."

She fled.

"We partner up – us and the locals, take two addresses each. I don't want anyone out alone," said Hotch, an expression of thunder on his face. "Morgan, you go out with a local. Reid, you're with me. Rossi, you go with Prentiss. Keep checking your phones in case she contacts us."

They all nodded, grabbing the stab vests and ear pieces they had brought with them, cognisant that this would likely be a case with a short fuse. No one had expected that they would have been rushing out to find one of their own, though. The last two vests, JJ's and Grace's, looked particularly forlorn on the counter.

"We need to stay calm and focussed," said Hotch, and several people nodded; the others merely scowled at whatever they were trying to pull on or do up.

Derek himself felt very far from calm.

Hotch glowered around the room. "Her battery probably just died, so let's just focus on finding her."

0o0

Colour in patches.

The sound of breathing.

Hers? Or someone else's?

Her wrists held fast; somewhere above her.

Grace struggled to open her eyes. The world swam around her. Struck by a sudden wave of nausea, she screwed them shut again.

 _Gods, my head hurts_ , she thought, and even the words inside her head felt slurred.

The sound of metal on metal above her made her try again: it was as if she were trying to view a Van Gogh through a particularly excitable kaleidoscope. Everything was over-bright, squirrelly and far too mobile. The edges were fuzzy. Grace blinked slowly, unable to take in anything she was seeing.

The sound came again and this time it was accompanied by a burning, tugging sensation in her wrists. She found she couldn't turn, but she could let her head fall back. There were hands above her – hers, she decided – tied securely with thick, white cord, which was looped over the bottom end of a cruel looking metal hook. The hook seemed to be on the end of a long metal chain that disappeared into the…

 _Into the what?_ She wondered. _Rafters? Where am I? A warehouse? No. A barn…_

She swayed and the movement seemed to sway the whole world, so she shut her eyes again, lowering her head.

Her shoulders hurt, too, now she came to think about it. More of a dull, strained ache than the stabbing pains in her head. Could she taste iron?

 _Blood…_

Now, why was that familiar?

 _Blood on wood…_

 _My blood…_

Some of the confusion cleared and her eyes snapped open. She tried to swear, but nothing that could be described as an actual word came out. Feeling the bonds around her wrists again, her body panicked, trying to struggle free.

Everywhere she threw her weight, however, she seemed to come back to the same point.

 _My feet aren't on the ground,_ she realised, as she swung to and fro. _Oh, no._

"Stop! Stop! You'll get hurt," said someone, and hands grasped her waist, stilling the movement.

Grace tried to be grateful for small mercies, but given that the owner of the hands didn't untie her or let her down, she was reasonably sure where she stood in terms of possible rescue.

She tried to focus on the blurry face in front of her. She was sure it looked worried; she felt like she knew the name it belonged to.

"Harriet…" she said, though it came out extremely slurred.

 _What is wrong with my mouth?_

"Harriet Dodds."

"I'm sorry – I… I couldn't get you out of the house, and then he came home – and you were…"

The woman continued to apologise, over and over. It was a kind of verbal panic, Grace thought. She could no more control it than Grace could her blurred vision.

 _Where's my gun?_

"You – could always – let me – go," Grace managed, focussing on making the words sound less drunken.

 _Where's my gun?_

"I – I can't. He'll – he'll… No. You have to stay here now," she said, with much less indecision than before. "Noah will know what to do."

"Noah…"

 _He's coming here, then. I bet he has my gun, too._

"Yes – he'll be along once he finishes cleaning up my mess."

For a horrible moment, Grace was seized by the notion that she meant the children, but Harriet put her mind at rest on that front, at least.

"You hush now," she said, facing off to Grace's right. "Noah is angry, you don't wanna make him hurt you again."

Painfully, and as gently as she could, Grace swung herself in that direction. Dimly she could make out two small shapes against the shadows of the wall.

"Kerry? Milo?" she managed to croak; the shapes appeared to nod their heads, too frightened to disobey their captor. "It's going to be okay."

"No it ain't," said Harriet miserably. "You shouldn't oughta give them hope."

Grace frowned at that, which set off fireworks in several parts of her skull.

She had to get Harriet talking; build a rapport; persuade her to help them. Which would be easier if it wasn't so goddamn hard to think.

She licked her lips. "Harriet, you don't have to do this," she said gently. "Noah's a good man – a good man for taking care of you…" She blinked, losing her train of thought. "But… but you don't have to do this. You could let us go, me and the children, and –"

"He'd hurt me," said Harriet, with frightened urgency.

"You could come with us," Grace suggested. "My team – they'd make sure you were safe –"

"He'd find me," Harriet insisted. "Noah's smart. Real smart. He'd find me, and – and –"

"We could protect you," Grace offered again. "You could take Milo and Kerry back to their dad. He's so – he's so worried about them, Harriet. They're all he has."

"That's… that's sad…" said the woman, and Grace began to hope she might be getting somewhere. "But they belong to Noah, now. Like me. Like you."

Her heart sinking, Grace tried again, "But –"

"No! You're tryin' to make me be bad – and I'm a good girl."

"Yes, you are," Grace subsided, helplessly.

"I am."

She licked her lips again. "Harriet, do you think you I could have some water, please? And the children, too?"

It was such a clichéd attempt at distraction, but she had to try. The way her head was still swirling about, Grace knew she didn't have much hope of a fair fight. But if she could get Harriet to turn away or go outside, she stood a chance at getting the kids out and to safety – even if she had to use magic to knock the woman out. As long as her brother didn't interrupt. With any luck, they wouldn't be too far outside of town.

"I – yes. Yes, I can do that," said Harriet, and walked to the far end of the barn, where there was an old metal cabinet. On it were several bottles of water.

 _Right,_ thought Grace. _I'll just untie myself and then…_

She tried to focus on the ropes binding her wrists, but the picture of them slid away from her mind's eye. Across the room, the single bulb above the cabinet winked out.

Harriet looked up, surprised. Grace tensed for trouble, but the woman didn't look in her direction, only pausing for a moment before continuing to the water.

 _That's not right…_

She tried again, this time putting a little more effort into it. The cabinet that had the water bottles on began to rattle violently, spilling the bottles onto the ground. Harriet jumped back in alarm, clutching the water bottle she had picked up. The ropes stubbornly held fast.

 _No, no, no! This is_ not _happening!_

Her head pounding, and aware she wouldn't have another shot at this, Grace pushed everything she had into undoing the ropes looped over the chain. With an almighty crack that shook the whole structure, a thin fissure opened up in the concrete floor, travelling to the corner of the room like a lightning strike and splitting the wooden beams where it met the wall.

Harriet and the children screamed; Grace couldn't. She was still gasping for breath from the wave of pain that had ripped through her. Dizzy and nauseous, she watched Harriet run to where the children were tied up and cower at their feet, still clutching the bottle of water, muttering desperate prayers under her breath.

 _So, that's not going to work… Buggeration._

"What – what was that?" She wasn't sure how she managed to force the words out, but pretending she hadn't noticed really wouldn't do her or the kids any good in the long run. "Harriet? What –"

"Shut up! Shut up!" the frightened woman cried. "Shut up! I'm not listening to you! No!"

 _My magic won't work,_ Grace thought, trying to fight the panic welling up inside. She felt suddenly much more vulnerable – which was not a good feeling when you are already tied up and hanging from the rafters of a barn.

 _And I've lost any chance of Harriet helping us._

 _Great._

 **0o0**

 **Literally –** _ **literally**_ **– five minutes before I was due to post this the internet went down for nearly two weeks. So you're getting it on a random Wednesday, because it's back. Should be a post as normal this Friday, assuming the connection doesn't die again. Apologies for leaving you on a cliffhanger for so long!**


	11. Missed Marple

**Essential Listening: Missing, by Anything But the Girl**

 **0o0**

The young woman shook her head. "No ma'am, she left here about a quarter past one. I was just setting the kids' dinner out."

"Well, thank you for your help – and sorry to disturb you again."

"That's two for two," Derek complained to the officer he had been partnered with as they walked the short stretch back to the patrol cruiser.

"I'm sure your agent will be okay," said Lieutenant Carter, in a tone that both of them recognised as conciliatory, professional and distinctly unhopeful. "I hope the rest of your team had more luck."

Derek nodded, thinking their unsubs would have hell to pay if they didn't find his friend.

0o0

"No. Well, thank you for your time."

Neither man said anything as they walked down the drive to the road, but Aaron fancied he could almost hear his younger agent's thoughts.

"She'll be okay," he said, as they reached the car, though he wasn't sure which of them he was intending to comfort. They had both been in this situation before, with a friend on the line, and they both knew the odds and how slim they were if they didn't act fast.

Reid met his eyes over the roof of the SUV. "Sure. Of course she will."

Unusually abrupt, he got in, leaving Aaron to wonder when he had got so good at covering his fear. Reid's emotions had almost always been painted across his face – unless he was unaware that he was being observed or was dealing with an unsub. Maybe some of Pearce's professional mask had rubbed off on him – at least when he needed it for a case. Aaron had no doubt if he made the team go off and sleep or eat it would be a different story.

Aaron got into the driver's seat, but didn't start the engine – evidently to Reid's surprise. He could feel his young friend watching him out of the corner of his eye.

"You…" he began, and glanced towards him; he was surveying him with guarded, nervous curiosity. "You probably know more about what Pearce can and can't do than I do."

Reid raised an eyebrow. Although they each knew the other was aware of their friend's stranger talents, and that some things were real that seemed unlikely at best and terrifying at worst, and while they had spoken of it in front of one another in euphemism, they had never directly talked about it. It felt very strange indeed to be doing so now – and from Reid's expression he felt the same.

Reid licked his lips. "Possibly, um…" he said, as if he was weighing exactly how much he could say.

"She has told me some of what she can do – and I've read a few of the books," said Aaron. Some of them had been so dense he could barely penetrate them. "Could she defend herself, if she needed to?"

Reid nodded slowly. "I think so. I've not seen her… um, she hasn't showed me much. Just – doors creaking open of their own accord and lighting candles out of nowhere. Witness statements from people who we know are dead because their corpses are _right there._ Stuff like that. But… um…" He chewed his lip for a moment and Aaron wondered just how much Grace – and by extension, Spencer – had been keeping from him. "Um…in New York, when she was in that elevator – with the – um – Secret Service guys? The dent in the wall outside it – that was her."

Aaron felt his eyebrows rise.

"She told me after she didn't even think, she just raised her hand and tried to drive the guy shooting at them as far back as she could. I think –" He frowned. "I think she deflected a bullet around her into the back of the elevator car."

"And the one that hit her…" Aaron said. New York had been harrowing, and many of his memories of that time were fuzzy, but he recalled the bloom of scarlet spreading down one of his agent's shoulders.

"Yeah." Reid swallowed. "I'm pretty sure she totalled the guy's cell phone, too, but she… she told me she didn't know she'd done that. It must have been in his pocket when…"

He raised his hand and pushed it away from him in an imitation of how he imagined her magic worked.

Aaron nodded slowly, remembering the conversation he and Pearce had had about her younger, more reckless self. "I asked her about London and the way Kate was around her," he said, though mostly to himself. "And she lied to me. And I bought it."

He frowned. He had trusted her since; and he knew her hesitance to tell him the truth stemmed from the knowledge he would have put her in a straight jacket if she had. It wasn't important now.

"Hotch, I don't think she would do… anything to –"

Aaron waved a hand, dismissing Reid's concern. "I know. I talked to her about it after Happy Valley and she told me everything."

 _Everything? She didn't tell me about New York…_

"Happy Valley?" Reid asked, with a frown. "What happened in…"

 _Oh right,_ Aaron thought. _They weren't entirely on close speaking terms then._

He told him about the car that quite emphatically didn't hit her and had the mild pleasure of watching Reid's mouth fall open in complete shock. In other circumstances he might have enjoyed it more – it was probably the same expression he had been wearing at the time.

To his surprise, however, Reid started to laugh. Not his usual chuckle, or the nervous giggle he sometimes let escape when he was anxious or forced to participate in speaking engagements, but a proper, real, almost helpless laugh. Aaron stared at him.

"S-sorry," he said, coughing. "I was just thinking – I remember when my life was normal and this stuff was all make-believe." He rubbed errant tears of hollow mirth from his face, expression darkening. "I don't know, Hotch. If she can do that to an oncoming car and make a dent in two feet of reinforced concrete, then there's not much that can hurt her, unless…" Reid trailed off, not wanting to voice the fear they were all keeping firmly at the back of their minds. "Unless she's unable to," he finished, with care.

Aaron nodded, starting up the engine. "So we're assuming she was, or is, unconscious."

"Um… unless whoever has her has magic too."

Aaron met his worried gaze. He hadn't even thought of that. "I need your head here, Reid," he said, recalling another hard case when all they'd all really wanted to do was hare off and look for a missing friend.

Not for the first time, he wondered whether their relationship had recovered from Vegas – if they had had the kind of relationship everyone suspected they had in the first place.

"I know," he said. "It is here." He looked rueful for a moment. "I might want to strangle her half the time, but… she's my friend."

Aaron nodded. Whatever else was going on with them, he could accept that.

She was his friend, too.

0o0

Emily knocked on the screen door, feeling antsy. Having someone you cared about on the line was never a good feeling, but not even knowing where to start looking for them – and there being two small children out there somewhere, too – that was worse.

Rossi, too, was terser than usual. He shifted uneasily from foot to foot as they waited for the owner of the tidy house and yard.

 _No kids here_ , she reflected. _Too neat._

She ran her eyes over the peeling white paint on the siding of the house for something to do.

 _The house has seen better days… but they're keeping it well enough._

The house was smaller than its more affluent neighbours, but it had clearly been allowed to fall into disrepair for a few years before the present occupants took up residence.

She glanced down at the name on her list. _Harriet Dodds._

The inner door creaked open. Emily looked up into the face of a large man whose name was unlikely to be Harriet.

"Good evening," said Rossi, holding up his badge. "David Rossi and Emily Prentiss – we're with the FBI."

The man raised an eyebrow. "You're the second FBI agent I've seen today," he said, then glanced at Emily and inclined his head towards her. "Third."

He didn't open the screen door, but stood just inside it, hands in his pockets, expectant.

"We're sorry to disturb you again," said Emily. "Our colleague came to visit you earlier?"

"Yes, Agent Pearce," he said. "She wanted to know about my sister's old truck." He jerked a thumb towards the drive, which was empty, then fell silent.

Emily got the distinct impression this guy didn't appreciate the intrusion.

 _Not naturally chatty. Doesn't like meeting my eye, either. Interesting…_

"What time would that have been?" she asked and he glanced at her again.

"About an hour and a half – no." He checked his wristwatch. "Two hours ago. Just after six."

"Are you sure?" Rossi asked.

"Yes." The look that accompanied the word wasn't quite a glare, but it was clear he was unhappy at having his word questioned. "I had just got in from work."

"And what did you tell her?"

"About what?"

"About the truck," Emily prompted, frowning.

"Oh. My sister Harriet died three years ago. I sold it then – I submitted the paperwork to the DMV."

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Emily. "Thanks for your help."

He turned to close the door, but Rossi stopped him. "Sorry, your name – for the records?" he asked.

"Noah. Noah Dodds."

"Thanks."

"He was friendly," Emily remarked as they got into the Yuke.

Rossi nodded, his eyes narrowed. "Somethin' about him…" He shook his head. "I don't know. I didn't like him."

"Can't arrest someone for being creepy," Emily observed, though privately she agreed with him. "If she left here two hours ago Grace can't have come here last."

Rossi rubbed a hand over his face. "Unless her disappearance is totally unrelated to the case."

They looked at one another; neither of them believed that.

"Let's head back, see if anyone got anything."

0o0

As soon as they got back inside the station, JJ emerged from Seward's office, and the worried, hopeful look on her face immediately told them that Grace hadn't come back or called in.

Spencer walked past her without meeting her eyes; he couldn't trust himself to. There was too much to do.

"So," said Hotch, after they had all reported the times Grace had apparently left each address. "According to these Pearce should have been back hours ago."

Spencer picked up a dry-white marker, because not doing anything at all was torture, and began marking on the map the locations of the houses she had visited and the distances between them.

"Get Garcia on the phone," Hotch ordered, but Morgan was apparently already dialling.

"Either someone's lying or she was taken on her way back in," said JJ.

None of them were avoiding saying the obvious, now.

"It's gotta be someone on the route," Emily declared.

"Okay, Momma." Somewhere behind Spencer, Morgan held the phone in the crook of his shoulder. "She's still shoutin' at the cell phone company."

Spencer chewed at the inside of his mouth as his colleagues argued. He wouldn't panic – he _couldn't_ panic. Not when one of his family needed him; not when _she_ needed him. He tuned the others out as they argued back and forth, focussing on the orange lines and their mathematical meanings.

It was strangely hard to think. His mind kept going back to the massive, Grace-shaped hole in the room, which seemed to be pulling all useful ideas into it.

"Who on our list fits the new profile?" Rossi asked, pulling the list towards him. "At least half of these can be struck off – wrong socio-economic background, wrong ethnic background…"

"Uh, we're assuming the unsub and accomplice are the same background then?" JJ asked.

"Well, yeah – if they're related," Emily put in.

"What if they're adopted?"

"Guys?" said Spencer, suddenly. He straightened up. "These times don't make sense."

Immediately, the rest of the team clustered around him; all of a sudden the space around the whiteboard was full of warm, anxious bodies. It was too many people in his personal space – and one too few – all at once.

"What do you mean?" Hotch asked, while Spencer sternly told himself that all these people breathing on him was _fine_ because they were family and that was okay.

"The first six – they're the right interval," he explained. "Um, the right amount of time for – for Grace to get to the next house, ask a few questions and then leave. But the last four – they're too bunched up. There's no way she could have got from here –" He pointed to the location of one of the houses on the map, then to another. "To here in under seven minutes. She would have had to loop around the whole of Peachtree Lake – and she doesn't drive like Morgan."

It was a mark of how tense they all were that Morgan didn't even respond.

"So one of these four people lied," he said instead, looking at the latter part of their friend's route.

"Did anything seem out of place?" Hotch asked; he and Spencer had had addresses on the first half of the list.

"No." Morgan shook his head. "Normal families livin' normal lives."

"The first one? Not really," said Emily, exchanging a loaded glance with Rossi.

"I knew there was something off about that last guy," he exclaimed.

"Name?" Hotch asked, as they peeled off and went back to the files on the desk.

"Noah Dodds. Said he'd sold his sister's truck three years ago."

"Yeah, he told us Grace had been and gone two hours before we got there." Emily frowned. "Now I come to think of it, I think there was a fuel stain on the drive – recent, too."

Rossi slammed his palm down onto the desk, making them all jump. "He didn't ask why we were askin'. Goddamn it – I should've known."

"Okay Garcia, I'm puttin' you on speaker – yeah, right now," said Morgan, holding out his cell for them all to hear.

Even Garcia was feeling the team's anxiety; she wasn't her usual, snappy self at all.

" _The cell company says the last tower Grace's phone was near before it went off was in Spooner Ridge,"_ she announced, tersely.

Prentiss ripped open her notebook. "That's the one – that's Dodds!"

" _Please, please go and get our Miss Marple back now!"_ Garcia begged, but she needn't have bothered.

They were already out of the door.

0o0

Spencer's heartbeat seemed over-loud on the frenetic drive up to Spooner Ridge. It was a wealthy area, but one or two of the houses – usually those most hidden by the trees – had fallen a little into disrepair. A mark of the downturn in the economy, perhaps. Several of them had 'For Sale' signs in their yards or at the ends of their drives.

The Dodds' residence was at the very end of a winding, labyrinthine series of little roads that did nothing to calm him down. It seemed like every turn they made took them further away from Grace.

He gripped the side of the car as Hotch took one of the corners rather sharply, narrowly missing the startled occupants of one of the hundreds of golf carts, his mind full of Hankel, and all the things that had happened to him when _he'd_ gone missing in Georgia.

 _If we keep losing agents like this here we're going to have to blacklist the state,_ he thought wildly. Even in his head it sounded so much like something Grace would say that he had to bite his lip – hard enough to break the skin. Distracted, he brushed away the drop of blood with the back of his hand.

If something happened to her…

His treacherous mind began to supply mental images of all the horrible things that could happen to a person – all the appalling fates he had come across on this job – but with Grace's features super-imposed. Spencer increased his grip on the upholstery.

 _No. Stop that. You need to focus. She needs you to focus._

The SUV hadn't even properly stopped moving when the team poured out of it; guns up, expressions grim. Responding to Hotch's silent command, he followed Prentiss and Morgan around the back of the property, through a patch of ground where someone had been trying – largely unsuccessfully – to grow carrots, and around to the back door.

It led into an empty, Spartan kitchen, entirely devoid of life; they met the others in the lounge – painted a horrible mustard colour – then siphoned off into different rooms, clearing each one in turn: bedroom; bathroom; bedroom. Tiny laundry room. Locked door.

Spencer moved to the far side of it, sharing a look with Morgan. Carefully, he slid the long metal bolt back and opened it, allowing his colleagues to filter inside.

 _Nothing._

"Nothing," Rossi echoed, aloud.

"Prentiss, Morgan – check the garden," Hotch ordered.

Chief Seward waved a couple of her people to follow them. "My friend at the property office says this place has been occupied about five years, by Harriet and Noah Dodds, brother and sister, both from Louisiana," she told them. "That truck is registered to this address – as is a golf cart license."

"We knew they had a second form of transport," Rossi grumbled.

His voice seemed to be coming from a long way away to Spencer, who was staring at the bolted door.

"Looks like someone left in a hurry," said JJ, who had abandoned media management for the time being. "Clothes strewn all over the bedroom."

"Same in here," Rossi called. "Looks like a man's room."

"Um, guys?" said Spencer, still staring at the lock. "This room locks from the outside – and the metal's been painted over a couple of times. I mean – it must have been here a few years…"

"So, this isn't their first party," said Rossi heavily, joining him.

They might have gone in then and there, but Hotch called them back into the kitchen.

"What is it?" JJ asked, half-hopeful.

Wordlessly, Hotch motioned them towards a kitchen drawer. Spencer felt his heart drop out of his stomach. On top of a neat stack of napkins and tablecloths were a cell phone, an FBI-issue gun, a badge, and –

"That's her father's pocket watch," Spencer said, in an unsteady voice, before Hotch had chance to life the badge out and reveal their friend's name and picture.

He felt like the room was spinning.

"Hotch!" Morgan cried, coming back in. "We found tyre tracks out back – and a place for a cart to park. And –" He stopped when his eyes fell on the contents of the badge Hotch was holding.

Prentiss joined him.

"And there's a length of wood stuffed into the bushes," she said, with a hollow voice. "Uh – there's blood on it."

There was a rather pregnant pause.

"Okay, we need forensics in here," said Hotch, and Seward gave a nod and disappeared outside to start wrangling people. "Morgan, call Garcia and tell her to tear Harriet and Noah Dodds' records apart. They must have a secondary location – even just a temporary one. We need to find it."

"Garcia – no, she's not here. Yes, we checked everywhere – Babygirl, let me get a word in! We found her badge and gun…" Morgan headed into the lounge where he could console their technical analyst in peace.

"JJ –" Hotch began, but she interrupted.

"I know, monitor the press in case they call in and want to make a deal." She swallowed. "Grace is a hostage, now. Unless…"

She didn't say it, but she didn't need to. They were all thinking it.

Prentiss broke the silence. "If she was dead, why not just leave her here?"

Hotch nodded soberly. "Exactly. We work on the assumption she's alive until – _if_ – we find evidence to the contrary. JJ, put together a press release – take pictures from the lounge and get Garcia to send you Pearce's. The professional FBI one and one where she looks more civilian. More human. I don't know yet if involving the media will put too much pressure on them, but I want to be ready in case we need to."

"Got it. Uh – I'll make sure Jules Grayling is informed – we don't want him finding out through hearsay. And it might make him feel better to know someone's with his kids, even if…" She stopped, swallowed, and left the kitchen.

"I'll have the Dodds' description sent out to the department and get the Chief to put an APB out on that truck – and the golf cart registered to them," said Prentiss, already heading outside. "I've seen a lot of customisation in the last day, here's hoping theirs is recognisable, too."

"I shoulda spotted this, Aaron," said Rossi, hotly.

"Come on, Dave – you said yourself this guy was off," Hotch argued.

"Yeah, but I didn't act on it. He must've stayed behind to talk to us while the accomplice took the kids and Pearce to a safe place."

"Don't do that to yourself."

"We coulda had him!" Rossi stormed out of the kitchen and off through the lounge; Hotch hot on his heels.

"Dave, wait!"

Their argument and footsteps echoed along the hall. That left Spencer alone in the little kitchen, staring down at the pocket watch in the open drawer.

It felt like his ears were ringing; sound seemed to be coming from a long way away. The silence seemed very loud.

He ought to wait for forensics.

Really, he ought.

Gingerly, he used a glove to pick up the pocket watch and pressed the button at the top to open it. It sprang apart. Spencer watched the tiny hands ticking past the blue roman numerals on the face, while through the panel that showed the mechanism, cogs and springs whirred and span, patiently marking the passage of each second. It was a winding watch, he knew, rather than a battery driven thing, as attested by the number of times he had seen her cursing on the jet because she'd forgotten to wind it and resetting the time.

It seemed wrong, somehow, that it should be quietly ticking away like this when its owner was god knows where, with – at least, based on the lump of wood Emily had found out back – some form of blunt force trauma forceful enough to draw blood. Eventually, though, it would just wind down entirely, and the thought that no one might wind it back up felt wrong on an entirely different level. Spencer felt a little ill.

The watch was so much a part of Grace it seemed wholly unnatural for it to be here and her to be elsewhere. It was like her talisman, the thing she turned to in times of need. The way she fiddled with it when she was anxious was almost an unconscious act – a little tactile connection to her father that steadied her.

Spencer frowned. There was an inscription on the inside of the lid he had never noticed before. It was straightforward and unsentimental, like her: _'To Grace, love Dad x'_.

Feeling he had intruded, he closed the lid of the watch with a snap and pulled an evidence bag out of his pocket. It didn't feel right leaving something so precious to her behind. He slipped it in the pocket of his trousers and went to do a proper search of the house, the weight of it an anchor to reality.


	12. Fragile Grasp

**Trigger warning (about two thirds into the chapter): physical violence; violence towards children. Psychological abuse. Not just the aftermath.**

 **Um… Happy New Year! I have a quasi-resolution to not miss a week this year outside of the festive period or barring serious injury. So fingers crossed!**

 **Essential listening: The Girl With the Dirty Shirt, by Oasis**

 **0o0**

The evening was beginning to draw in, and the warmth of what had been a pleasantly warm day – much like an early English summer, but without the drizzle – was beginning to fade. It wasn't unpleasantly cold – yet – just not as comfortable a temperature as it had been before. Grace had been conducting her interviews in her blouse and suit, leaving her arms bare. Those parts of them that hadn't gone numb from being tightly bound and suspended above her head for the last couple of hours were beginning to prickle in the cooler air.

Harriet, after cowering on the floor for what seemed like hours (but was likely much less time) had eventually abandoned the bottles of water and fled from the barn, which had allowed Grace – still sweating from her failed attempt at removing the ropes – to swing herself around and take stock.

Currently she was trying not to panic. She had attended enough autopsies and seminars on the physical effects of torture to know that being suspended from ones arms was a recipe for a painful and relatively swift death. As it was, her legs were already going numb – an immediate precursor to unconsciousness, if she recalled correctly (and with the concussion she was undoubtedly suffering from, she couldn't be entirely sure) – and her breathing was quickly becoming restricted.

Grace was painfully aware, with all the clarity of an expert, that if she didn't manage to rest her weight on something soon she would pass out, suffocate, or pass out and then suffocate.

The swimming vision and mild nausea from the head injuries weren't helping, either.

Blearily, she managed to focus on an elderly, but sturdy-looking crate, just beyond her reach.

 _Now if I can just swing a little closer…_ she thought.

Thanking gods she didn't believe in that Prentiss and JJ had made her go to Pilates for the last six months, she swung her legs back and forth, using her abdomen as a sort of pivot. Grunting and gritting her teeth against the agony this was causing in her wrists, she inched herself closer to the crate with each swing. Grimly, she pushed the possibility that she might permanently damage her wrists doing this to the back of her mind. She would have to worry about that later; first she had to take the compression pressure off her chest and get the circulation in her legs moving again.

The tip of her toe grazed the corner of the crate.

 _One more swing –_

Her foot knocked the crate over (thankfully towards her, or she would have been screwed) at about the same time as one of her wrists made a horrible sort of crunching noise. She cried out as a thin spike of agony shot down her left arm, increasing in intensity with every subsequent swing.

Gasping with the pain, tears streaming down her face, Grace forced herself to focus on manoeuvring the box beneath her feet until she was sure she could rest on it. Gingerly, she allowed her feet to sink onto the lid, desperately hoping it wouldn't break.

It held.

It wasn't much, and it seemed strong enough to hold her weight indefinitely. It was enough.

The relief of standing on something again made her a little giddy. She looked up at her wrists as the circulation sluggishly began to return to her legs. Even in the dimness of the barn she could see the dark stain of bruising blooming under her skin. Over the heady, intense pain, she felt the tips of her fingers begin to tingle.

She swore, quite comprehensively, and was conscious of two small, impressed gasps.

"Um… Ma'am?"

It took her a minute to remember who else was with her, so focussed she had been on her own predicament; she suspected the little boy had spoken several times, but she hadn't heard him.

"Hello Milo," she said, weakly.

"Are you okay, Ma'am?"

"I will be," she said, trying to sound more certain than she felt. "I'm better now I'm on this box – but I think I broke my wrist."

"That's nasty," said the little boy. "I broke my arm when I was five and it hurt forever and ever."

"That's a long time," Grace managed. She squinted in their direction. Fortunately, they had not been secured in the same way she had – both children's wrists were bound, a length of rope connecting the two and looped around a hook so that they were standing awkwardly with one arm stretched across their chest, the other bunched up against the wall. There was an old metal fence between them, and each of them had one ankle tied to that, too.

An uncomfortable position to have to hold, particularly for young children, but not immediately medically precarious.

"How are you two doing?" she asked. They weren't crying anymore, which was a good thing.

"We've been standing up for such a long time," Milo complained.

Grace got the impression he might have continued, but his sister interrupted in what she clearly imagined was a whisper. "Milo – we're not supposed to talk to strangers!"

"But the mean lady doesn't like her either, so she must be on our side," he reasoned, with impeccable child-logic. "I think we should trust her."

"Yeah, 'cause that turned out so well last time," Kerry hissed back urgently.

Through the haze of pain and dizziness that was fast becoming her reality, Grace managed a smile that was probably more like a grimace. "Your – your sister's right, Milo. You shouldn't trust just anyone." She addressed the small girl, defiant now their captor had left the room. "I met your father, Kerry – he asked me and some of my friends to find you both."

Her eyes widened. "Da-daddy knows we're here?"

"No – not yet," said Grace, cursing the implication. She wished she could think straight. "But my friends are the best at finding people in the whole world. They're coming for us, don't worry."

The children exchanged doubtful looks, probably based on Grace's own condition.

She licked her lips and said the thing investigators never ought to say: "I promise."

It seemed to do the trick. Both children seemed to relax a little. In any case, it would be unlikely they would outlive her promise, if the worst came to the worst.

"Are you a cop?" Kerry asked, more shyly.

"No – I used to be, in London," she told them, and caught Milo mouthing 'cool' at his sister out of the corner of her eye. "I'm in the FBI."

"FBI?" Milo repeated, with a sense of awe.

"Yeah, so you know my team will stop at nothing to rescue us."

"Wow!"

Grace could have laughed, if the situation were different. They appeared to have forgotten entirely where they were, and who else was outside.

Kerry asked, "What's your name?"

"Grace."

"It's nice to meet you, ma'am," the little girl intoned dutifully; the product of a good upbringing.

"Yeah," Milo echoed. "Nice to meet you."

He shifted uncomfortably.

The novelty of talking to the sweary adult chained to the ceiling was beginning to wear off and the children were once again remembering how unhappy and frightened they were.

 _I'd better keep them talking_ , she thought.

"Do you think you could tell me about what happened this morning?" she asked gently.

"Um, when the nasty lady came and took us in the van?" Kerry asked.

"Yes, please."

"Um, we went over to Mrs Jameson's after breakfast," she responded.

"I had fruit loops," said Milo, with an air of importance.

"I didn't," said Kerry, pulling a face. "I had toast and peanut butter."

Milo stuck his tongue out at his sister. "We watched cartoons for a bit," he said. "Then we went outside to play. There's a swing in Mrs Jameson's yard."

"It used to be Tyler's, but he says he's too old for it now."

"We played cops and robbers, and then Kerry made me play hopscotch."

"I won!" she exclaimed, with pride.

"I bet you did," Grace said, through gritted teeth; the pain in her wrist was dulling a little now, to an insistent throb. "When did the woman in the van turn up?"

"I don't remember exactly," said Milo, looking for confirmation at his sister, who shook her head. "We were playing, and I was starting to get hungry, and then this lady comes over and asks if I could help her."

"What did she want you to help her with?" Grace asked, her investigator's instincts taking over.

Not that it would matter, she reminded herself, if she didn't get out of here.

"She said she had dropped her glasses," Kerry explained. "Under the van."

"She said I was smaller and she couldn't get in as far as I could," the little boy continued. "She told Kerry to wait in the garden –"

"But I didn't want to," she interrupted. "I'm smaller than Milo, I coulda fitted better."

"As soon as I crouched down to – to look under the van…" He stopped, sniffled a little, and drew himself up to his full height, clearly trying to show he was unaffected. "She grabbed me."

"I was right behind her," Kerry put in, and I kicked her in the shin, but she wouldn't let go."

They were speaking quickly now, breathlessly, almost falling over one another.

"I was yelling for her to let go of me –"

"I just kept kicking her and hitting her –"

"I thought someone would hear –"

"I was so scared she was going to take Milo away –"

"And then she got the van door open and kind of threw me inside –"

"Then she grabbed my arm and threw me in too –"

"Kerry landed on me –"

"She slammed the door… and then the van started moving."

"I was so scared," Milo admitted, wide eyed. Then burst into tears.

"It's okay," said Grace. "I would have been scared, too. I'm scared now, in fact."

"Me too," Kerry added, holding her brother's hand through the fence.

"I wish you'da just let her take me, Kez," said Milo, unexpectedly.

"Don't be silly," his sister told him. "Couldn't let her."

Mile smiled tearfully at her. "I guess."

Grace watched them collect themselves. Two peas in a pod, their father had said. Well.

"What happened when the van stopped?" she asked, when Milo had stopped crying.

"The lady came back – only now she had a knife," said Kerry. "She made us go into a house, into a bedroom."

"She tied a scarf around our mouths," said Milo, and his sister suppressed a shudder.

"And tied up our hands," she added, with a shudder.

"She told us her brother was coming and we belonged to him now."

"I couldn't stop shaking," Kerry said, so softly that Grace almost missed it.

"You're both being so very brave," she told them, hoping it would help. She winced, which set off unwelcome explosions in her head. She knew, based on the pathology of the other boys, what would likely come next. "Did he come home?"

"No," said Milo, and Grace breathed a sigh of relief on his behalf. Dodds hadn't had time to start on Milo. "I heard someone come to the door."

"I heard that too," said Kerry. "I think that was you, ma'am."

"Probably," said Grace, remembering how gentle Harriet had seemed at first. "What happened next?"

"There was a lot of shouting," said Kerry, in a small voice. "Then _he_ came in."

"He told the lady to put us in the van and take us to the shed –"

"But it's a barn," Kerry insisted.

"Yeah, well, he said it was a shed. He said she'd have to bring you, too. He said you'd ruined everything, and that _she_ should never have brought Kerry along…"

"She asked him if she could keep me," said Kerry suddenly. "She said she'd always wanted a little girl. I don't want to stay here. I want to go home. I want Daddy."

She dissolved into tears, crying quietly while her brother patted her ineffectually through the bars of the fence.

Grace made comforting noises, fighting waves of dizziness, assuring them that they would be found; that they would be back with their father in no time at all. In the privacy of her mind she hoped against hope that this was true.

 _Please find us, guys. Please…_

0o0

Spencer left the man's room with a feeling of distinct distaste. It was almost aggressively masculine, as if the owner felt that they might at any moment be accused of not being. There were no pictures on the walls, but there was a box in one of the drawers stuffed with pictures of young boys – all of the black, and all under the age of ten. Most of them looked like they had been cut out of magazines for clothing or swimwear.

Even though he and Morgan had both been working this job for years, they had both turned a little pale when the box had been opened.

Seward had returned to tell them that Dodds' boss thought he had said something about being in the air force – of which he had been extremely proud – and not a lot else. He had worked for a small maintenance company that served several of the large golf courses in the area. Clearly, whatever else he was, he didn't feel the need to put himself into close proximity to small children while he was at work.

 _He doesn't need to,_ Spencer thought darkly. _He has his sister pick them up for him. Much more convenient for the busy, working man…_

Although Noah's things were in disarray, as though he had packed a bag very quickly, beneath the top layer of disturbance, everything was terribly neat. The bed sheets were folded with a precision that reminded Spencer firmly of the military and inside the drawers that had been untouched by the packing frenzy, things were arranged so neatly their owner might have used a ruler.

 _Someone who feels the need for control_ , he thought. A need which was born out elsewhere in the house. The living room was Spartan; one side of the couch showed a deeper depression than the other, and in front of it the carpet was slightly more worn. On that side had been a stack of men's interest magazines and the remote for the television, placed at a precise angle.

The other side had a coaster and nothing else, as though the other occupant of the house spent very little time in the main room – or if they did, as soon as they left it their presence was immediately erased. It was as if Harriet Dodds was a ghost in her own home.

Her room was also tidy, but not to the same strict standards, as if she were allowed a modicum more autonomy in there, and there was a single glass of dried flowers on the chest of drawers. It had been knocked over in their haste to pack and leave. Under the pillow was a single, faded and crumpled photograph of two small children and two smiling parents. They looked like a picture-postcard family; the colours were over-saturated and the father – who Spencer recognised from the more recent pictures in the lounge – was wearing a mustard coloured polo-neck, the mother a highly patterned mauve dress, which put the picture firmly in the early seventies.

Spencer frowned at it. He knew very well that people could often manage to appear happy and functional in the split-second it tool to take a family photo, even when their worlds were privately shattering, but their smiles seemed genuine. Even the little boy, who he supposed must be Noah, looked happy. An ability he had lost in later life, if the other pictures in the house were anything to go by. He wondered what had gone wrong. He took a photo of it with his phone and sent it to Garcia, in case it helped track the family down. It had evidently meant something to Harriet, the way it had been tucked safely away, somewhere close by.

Based on the fact it had been left behind, he surmised that Noah had done the packing and hadn't known about the photograph – or else didn't care.

There was a well-thumbed bible on Harriet's nightstand, and two slightly worn patches beside the bed, as if someone spent a lot of time kneeling there and praying.

 _She'd need to, with a brother like Noah_ , Spencer thought savagely.

Unconsciously, his hand went to the pocket Grace's pocket watch was hidden in, thinking of what the son of a… the son of a _bitch_ was doing – might be doing – _couldn't_ be doing to his friend.

Reminding himself he had to breathe, Spencer turned into the little room at the end of the corridor, at the far side of the laundry room. The forensic technicians, who had just cleared the room, gave him a nod as they carried their super-intense lights out along the hall.

Rossi, who had been out in the yard, met his gaze. Sharing a grim look, the two men went into the room. There wasn't much to see. The bed was made with the same drill-sergeant precision. There were no books or toys, no art on the wall; yet it was obviously intended for a child. One sole, very worn teddy bear had been placed on the night stand, beside an old alarm clock. There was a desk against one wall, with one faded comic book on it. It looked like it might be very old.

"Vintage," Rossi mused, opening it. "Date on the top is August 1979."

"Could it have been the unsub's, do you think?" Spencer asked, examining the window.

It had steel bars welded across it, like a cage.

"Maybe…"

"It would match the age of the bear – and the photograph," he said, and told Rossi about the picture he'd found under Harriet's pillow.

"Huh," said Rossi. "He's doing everything he can to forget that time; she's tryin' to remember. But this? This is a thing he would have to know about. He would have 'allowed' a child to read it."

"A reward?"

"Possibly." Rossi scowled. "For good behaviour. I can't wait to nail this jackass."

Spencer made a non-committal sound that nevertheless conveyed that he was in complete agreement, and would quite like to shoot the bastard while he was at it.

He opened the cupboard and felt his eyebrows shoot upwards. While the room was largely bare, the cupboards were full of boys' clothes.

"Oh God," he breathed. "Look at them all."

But Rossi shook his head. "This isn't an exponential number of victims," he said, guessing the direction of Spencer's thoughts and thumbing through the clothes on the rack. "Look at the sizes, and relative wear." He pulled out a shirt that would be three sizes too big for the boys the local law enforcement had been pulling out of trees of late. "This is a much older child – maybe ten, twelve?"

Spencer frowned, touching the hem, which had been neatly repaired – probably by Harriet – the implications of their discovery settling heavily upon him. "So they don't just take boys and kill them when he's done abusing them – at least not short term. Hotch!" he called.

Rossi showed their grim-faced team leader the shirt when he stuck his head around the door.

"We think they've had a boy for a long time," he said. "Long enough to grow out of and into several sizes of clothes."

"Dodds is leaving the disposal of these boys to his sister because he has no compulsion to kill. He just doesn't care about that part of it," Spencer said. "He's not looking for 'boys', but for one in particular. He's looking for a replacement."

0o0

Little by little, the children had calmed down, and Grace had found herself beginning to slump into the kind of exhaustion that felt dangerous, given their predicament. So she had got the children to tell her about their lives; their school; the games they liked; their favourite food; their dad's hobbies. Anything to keep their minds off what was happening and _her_ mind engaged.

They were in the middle of a story about how they had used to stay with their Pa – their grandfather on their father's side – before he died, when they segued onto the subject of funerals faster than Grace could stop it, and Milo abruptly burst out with, "I saw a grave outsida here."

There was a moment of silence. Grace wasn't sure she had heard him correctly. "I'm sorry, what did you say?" she asked, her mind feeling very slow and heavy.

"Outside the barn," he said again, in a small voice. "When she brought us in here – there was a grave, with the soil all mussed up, like after they buried Pa."

She had been about to respond when the door at the end of the barn slammed so hard it shook the wall. Both children screamed; Grace felt like a bolt of electricity had passed right through her. She jumped so badly that it jolted her broken wrist; hissing with fresh pain, her eyes began to water.

"If you don't behave you can join him in the ground!"

Noah Dodds seemed to fill the doorway. He glared at Milo and Kerry until they were both cowering against the wall, too frightened even to cry, then turned his attention to Grace.

She steeled herself, trying to find a way to talk to him, but it was no use. Before she knew it he was in front of her. The punch to the gut was not wholly unexpected, but it still made her double up, wrenching her wrists and shoulders as she swung wildly about. He struck her again, and again, until she lost count of the blows, and the whole world was pain. Eventually, it subsided, and she was left hanging weakly, scrabbling with her feet to find purchase on the box again.

She coughed hard, spitting blood out onto the dirt. There was a strange, mewling sort of sound, and to her horror, Grace realised it was coming from her mouth.

Dodds, fortunately, wasn't paying attention, too busy smacking his sister around and bellowing that she had ruined everything.

"You can't do a single thing right!" he yelled, holding her arm so she would stay within reach and slapping her with the other. "You always screw up! Just like Dad said! You're just a fucking retard!"

He smacked her again, and she cried out.

"Stop," said Grace shakily, but she doubted he could hear her. She felt like she barely had the breath to speak.

"After all I done for you!" Noah shouted. "You shouldn't have brought the girl – look what you did! You brought the FBI down on us! I never brought trouble down on our door, but you did! You're just like Momma." He spat on the ground, then delivered such a powerful backhand to his sister's face that he drew blood.

The sight of it seemed to bring him back to himself, and for a split second everything was silent expect Harriet's whimpering, the children's terrified tears and Grace's laboured breathing. Then he threw his sister to the floor and started kicking the barrels and benches scattered around. Grace tried to keep an eye on him in case he went for her again, but it was hard work. As quietly as she could, she tipped the box she had been standing on – which had been upended in the onslaught – back under her feet and relieved some of the agony in her wrists and abdomen.

Across the room, Dodds reached the crack in the wall. "What the fuck is this?" he demanded.

Shakily, clutching her bleeding mouth, Harriet pointed at Grace, who swallowed.

 _Not again_ , she thought. _Give me a minute._

"She's tied to the roof," said Noah, slowly.

"She asked for water, and I went to get it, and the light went out – and – and the cabinet, it – it shook, Noah. I swear – I swear on – on the Bible. Then the whole place shook and – and there was this horrible noise – and the floor cracked – and –" She gasped for air. "I won't ever be bad again, Noah, I swear. Lord protect me and save me from home – keep me on the path of the righteous."

"Shut up," said Noah, who appeared to be calming down. "It was just an earthquake, you stupid woman."

He picked up one of the scattered bottles of water and righted a plastic barrel that had been stacked against the wall. When he sat on it, Grace let out the breath she had been holding. Although they were far from out of the woods, it looked like there would be an interval, at the very least.

"I need to think," said Dodds, opening the bottle of water. "I need to think."

She swallowed. Something about the scene made her think of the scent of soil and geranium petals, and a dark warehouse back in Moapa Valley, and an unsub with a baseball bat. She had got out of there alright – but her magic had been working, and she'd had a gun, and back up, and hadn't taken a beating…

Grace shut her eyes, feeling suddenly very queasy.

"I gotta think," Noah said again, bringing her abruptly back to the present. "There's a way outta this. I just need to think."

Harriet crawled over to him and laid her head against his knee, like a dog that had been wounded by its master, loyal to the last. Noah rested his palm on her head and she closed her eyes, still muttering prayers.

Grace risked a glance at the kids, who were huddled against the wall in fear.

 _It's going to be okay_ , she thought, wishing she could say it aloud – and desperately, desperately hoping it was true.


	13. A History of Violence

**Essential listening: Sneaky Freak, by Imelda May**

 **0o0**

Penelope was pacing.

She had taken her shoes off, because heels and pacing didn't go well together, and every few rotations she considered putting them back on in case she had to run out somewhere.

It was never a good day when one of her babies was in trouble, and the fact that the team weren't calling her back was a bad sign: either something was going down, or they were tearing the house in Spooner Ridge apart. Penelope wasn't sure which she preferred; whichever option meant that they got their girl back and she could go somewhere and calm down with a pint of ice cream. And gin.

It always put her in a state of great restlessness, being trapped in the office when the shit hit the fan. Being hundreds of miles away from it all was torture, particularly now she had run out of searches to run. Everything they had so far dead-ended, which meant that the names their unsubs had been using were false.

Both Kevin (who had heard through the general osmosis of building gossip that operated through Quantico) and Anderson had stuck their heads around the door twice in as many hours, trying not to intrude, but worried about their extended family. Anderson had been tasked by JJ to find pictures of Grace for a press release, if it came to it, and that had been particularly painful, seeing the professional missing persons poster, headed with her friend's face.

In the off-duty picture Anderson had picked out from the recent New Year's Eve party, Grace was smiling and laughing, standing between Emily and Morgan, looking invulnerable and full of life. Even in the more serious, professional portrait they all had done when they were sworn in she had contrived to look mischievous, somehow, the barest quirk of an eyebrow suggesting she was just on the edge of breaking into laughter. It felt indefinably wrong to think that she might be anywhere less than okay.

Or that her picture might join those on the sombre noticeboard in the corridor in the foyer.

 _In the line of duty…_

Penelope bit her lip. Getting upset wouldn't help anyone, but without some way to be useful it she felt utterly helpless.

Her computer chimed and she practically threw herself at the chair.

"Yes, what? Did you find her?" she demanded, as soon as the video chat loaded, but a worried looking Emily merely shook her head.

Penelope tried not to let her shoulders sag. From wherever she had been set up (inside the house itself, at a guess, based on the drab, non-institutional décor) she could see most of the team, all of whom looked restless and anxious. There seemed to be new lines on every face; Reid, who was near the back of the group looked like he'd aged about ten years in two hours. Even Hotch – who was legendarily hard to read – had undergone a transformation, his complexion a few shades greyer than when he had left.

"What do you need?" Penelope asked, pulling out her pen and notepad.

" _We're sending you pictures of all the ID we found in the house,"_ said Emily.

" _All_ the ID?"

" _Yeah,"_ Rossi explained heavily, _"looks like they've been movin' around for years. All across the Southeast."_

" _Any of those aliases might lead us to where they're keeping Grace and the Grayling kids,"_ Hotch put in. _"Failing that, we need to find their real names."_

Garcia nodded her acknowledgement, scribbling with one hand and typing with the other. Her email made a series of 'dings' as the images appeared in her inbox. "One deep spelunk into the past lives of the Deadly Duo, got it."

" _And Garcia, we're going to need you to bring up missing persons cases from Georgia and the neighbouring states,"_ Hotch continued, with the air of someone who was about to give bad news.

She brought up the requisite window with a few keystrokes, wondering what fresh horrors they were about to uncover.

"Shoot."

" _Concentrate on male, African American children between the ages of five and eight,"_ said Hotch.

"Because they've done this before, got it." She paused mentally, typing away as fast as she could. "But wouldn't we have seen the pattern of disposals before?"

Even after years of working in the BAU she couldn't quite bring herself to say the worst things when they related to children. Not in so many words, at least.

" _We didn't go back far enough,"_ said Rossi. _"These guys have been doing this for years."_

"Ugh. How many years?" Penelope asked, preparing to recalibrate her search parameters.

" _At least ten,"_ said Morgan. _"Wait – when was the earliest ID from?"_

" _1994,"_ Reid answered tersely.

" _Better make it fifteen, Babygirl."_

"Double ugh," said Penelope, and made it twenty, just in case. "Hunting dead babies. My favourite."

" _We also need you to look for missing children who were never found,"_ Rossi added.

Penelope pulled a face. "You think someone missed a little boy _hanging from a tree?_ " she exclaimed.

" _No, we think they keep some of them,"_ said Reid, abruptly.

Penelope stopped typing. "Like… so they can have family, or…?"

" _Definitely 'or',"_ said Emily, sounding tired.

" _So Dodds doesn't have far to go to indulge in his sexual proclivities,"_ Rossi supplied.

Oh God…

"Oh _God_ ," Penelope faintly repeated aloud.

" _We think he takes boys of about six or seven, finds one that appeals to him and then keeps him until the appeal wears off,"_ Hotch explained.

" _There were clothes in the closet for kids aged between about six and twelve – thirteen at the outside,"_ Emily continued. _"He's a paedophile."_

"So, when he… when he's…"

" _When he's no longer attracted to them, he likely disposes of them,"_ Morgan finished gently. _"We haven't found any evidence of a body, but we think these recent abductions and murders mean he's shopping around for a replacement."_

"I hate this job," said Penelope, after a moment.

Morgan grunted his agreement and Emily muttered something that sounded like, _"You and me, both."_

She steeled herself and started working again. They had folk to find, after all.

"Okay," she said. "I got this."

Settling into the rhythm of a multilateral data search, some of her anxiety lifted – but only a little. Logically, she knew Grace could take care of herself – but so could Elle, and look what happened to her. Or Reid, last time they were in Georgia. Or…

 _Stop it! Not helping._

To her relief, the team didn't immediately sever the digital link. She wasn't sure she could bear to be cut out of this one right now, and perhaps they sensed that. Instead, they started throwing ideas around. Well, she could work and eavesdrop at the same time. She wasn't a technical goddess for nothing!

" _You know, Seward had her guys canvas the neighbours,"_ Morgan remarked. _"They all said the same – both polite, kept themselves to themselves. Some of 'em didn't like Noah Dodds much, felt sorry for Harriet. Said he bullied her. Not one of them mentioned a kid livin' here."_

" _There's no ID for them either,"_ Emily put in. _"Five sets for Noah and Harriet, but nothing for a child."_

"I can tell you there's no child registered with any school in the area at that address," Penelope – who had just that moment finished checking – informed them.

"No toys, no personal items outside their room, no school, no ID," Spencer listed. His voice was oddly tight, as though he was fighting his own anxiety at the situation by staunchly ignoring it. "The bars on the windows, neighbours never seeing him… The boy was kept as a prisoner, both figuratively and literally."

" _We'd better get the hairbrush from the room DNA tested,"_ said Hotch, and nodded at the forensic technician quietly working in the background, who made a note of this. _"If a child was listed as a missing person four or five years ago there should be a sample to run it against."_

" _Assuming they maintained their M.O.,"_ Rossi reflected, gloomily.

It was easier when she was chasing leads, but there was still a large part of Penelope that wanted to scream and shout that they should be talking about Grace and not the unsubs, but she knew the fastest way to recovering her friend – and to the two smiling kids whose photo was in the background on her computer, one of the many windows she had open at one time at this point in an investigation – was to track the Dodds (or whatever their real names were) down.

"Okay," she said, scan reading. "Okay, the IDs dating from 2000 are for a Henrietta and Nolan Dobson, resident in Oxford Alabama. Nolan worked maintenance at the Anniston Army Depot; Henrietta was listed as claiming disability and registered to several discount programs in the area. Pretty sure a couple of them are fake, but some are legit – based on the fake ones as proof, I guess. I got a spate of abductions and murders – same M.O. – in early June 2004, just before they turned up in Peachtree City as Harriet and Noah. Zachary Austin, aged seven; Kyle Mason, aged six; Cody Quinn, aged seven; and Justin Josephs, aged eight."

She loaded their images into the hangout so the rest of the team could see. The photos were a collection of school sports, birthday parties and days out, and were enough to break Penelope's heart all over again.

"Zachary and Kyle were found in the northern part of Talladega National Forest – a couple of miles apart. They didn't find Kyle for months – looks like by the time they did he was no longer in the tree – though they still found the –" Penelope grimaced. "– the rope. Cody was found in the Mountain Longleaf Wildlife Reserve. They never found Justin Josephs."

" _Well, he could be the boy who was living here,"_ said Emily. _"If he was seven in 2004 that would make him eleven or twelve now, depending on his date of birth."_

" _Garcia –"_ Hotch began, but she pre-empted him.

"I linked his file to the DNA request," she interrupted. "I have more."

Several people groaned.

" _We were expecting this,"_ Rossi reminded them, though he looked grim, too.

"Three more boys went missing in Florence, South Carolina in 2000," she informed them, putting up more photographs. "Brandon Michaels, aged eight; Tyler Elizabeth, aged seven, and Kevin Richards, aged six. Brandon and Tyler were found in the – and get this for terrible irony – Lynches River County Park in February; nobody ever heard from Kevin Richards again."

Penelope sighed.

"According to the ID you found in the house, a Nathan Derringer worked maintenance for Intercity Rail in Florence at the time of the murders; his sister, Haley, was unemployed, but registered on a discount scheme with the city utilities."

" _Well, they're keepin' to their own script,"_ Morgan mused. _"Take a couple of boys until the brother finds the one he wants; leave town."_

" _He works to provide for the 'family',"_ Rossi added. _"She stays home and makes sure the boy doesn't escape."_

"There are more," said Garcia, sadly.

" _More?"_ Morgan gaped at her.

" _Oh God,"_ Emily exclaimed.

Behind them, Reid shook his head, caught between anger and sadness. He crossed and uncrossed his arms, obviously frustrated.

Hotch's frown – already a gaping chasm in his forehead – deepened further. _"Go on, Garcia."_

"Jesse Page, aged eight; Andrew Morrison, aged eight; Daniel Cooper, aged six; and Christopher Trent, aged seven," Penelope listed. "All went missing from Winnfield, Louisiana in the autumn of 1996; Jesse, Andrew and Daniel were found hanging from trees in the Kisatchie National Forest."

" _Let me guess,"_ Rossi said sourly, _"they never found Christopher's body."_

"Got it in one, mon capitan," Penelope congratulated him. "Heather and Nicholas Parker lived in Winnfield at that time, Mr Unpopular working first as – ick – a janitor at an elementary school, then at the lumber mill."

Rossi nodded. _"He get fired?"_

Penelope nodded grimly. "It says he quit… but, hey! There's a note on his employment record that several teachers were uncomfortable with the way he looked at or acted around young boys. Quelle surprise!"

" _Huh. I guess he learned from that,"_ Morgan suggested. _"Started gettin' his sister to watch and abduct the kids for him."_

" _Smart,"_ Emily reflected. _"If she got caught he could clear out and start again somewhere else."_

Reid, who was subjecting the screen Penelope was on to a particularly perspicacious stare, spoke up. _"You've got more victims, haven't you?"_

She nodded sadly. Sometimes Reid's ability to predict the next piece of information was simply uncanny.

"As usual, good doctor, you are correct. This time we're heading to Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Eight year old Jason Gibbs and seven year old Marcus Webb went missing in April 1993. They had been on a school field trip to the zoo and had been missed at the end of the day. They were best friends, and at first the authorities just assumed they had run off together, playing a game or something. They found Marcus in a well-travelled part of the DeSoto National Forest, same as the others, but beaten so badly that his own mother couldn't recognise him. Someone had left flowers beside the tree he was hanging in. They never found Jason.

"A Noah Cook worked at the Hattiesburg Zoo from August 1992 to July 1993," she added, "when he up and vanished. He had a sister, Harriet, listed as his next of kin."

" _Noah and Harriet again,"_ said Rossi. _"Maybe they're going back to their roots."_

" _If both boys went missing on the same day – and with that level of violence towards Marcus Webb – they might have been his first victims,"_ said Hotch, nodding at Rossi. _"Garcia, I need you to find out everything you can about Noah and Harriet Cook."_

"Yes, sir!" she replied, already typing at high speed.

" _If their dates of birth on these IDs are correct,"_ said Emily, rifling through the evidence bags. _"And they seem to be consistent – that would mean Noah was born in 1969 and Harriet in 1973."_

" _He looked about thirty-nine. Yeah,"_ Rossi agreed, nodding.

Reid's frown deepened. _"The disposal sites she picks – by a lake, national parks, nature reserves. It's like she's trying to choose nice places for them to be found, or to be at rest. Despite the display – probably her brother's idea – she cares about these boys. She even left flowers for Marcus Webb."_

"She still killed them," Rossi pointed out.

" _Yeah,"_ Reid argued. _"But if she cares about what happens to these kids – if we can find her, she might tell us where Kerry and Milo are. And Grace."_

Hotch nodded. _"Whatever she is now, she started out as an unwilling participant. We'll keep it in mind. Let's give the house another once-over. Garcia?"_ he added, turning towards her.

"Sir?"

" _Keep looking."_

"As if I'd stop when one of my babies is on the line!"

He seemed to accept that, and the team began to move off, each sending mournful looks in her direction.

Penelope returned to her deep dive into Noah and Harriet Cook, her stomach unpleasantly squirrely at the darker thoughts that were threatening to take over her mind.

 _Hang in there, 007…_

0o0

Grace started awake, unaware that she had ever been asleep.

The movement and brief moment of panic sent fresh stabs of pain through her wrist, forcing a soft whimper from her lips, and the chains above her to creak.

It was a bad position to pass out in, though with her feet on the box she didn't have to worry about suffocation, at least. In her time as a London bobby it wasn't unknown for one or other of whomever was on duty to get a little shuteye while the other kept watch, so sleeping on her feet was one of those weird skills that had been cultivated on 3 a.m. shifts when nothing much happened.

Still, her entire frame was stiff, aching from maintaining the same position for so long and hurting more distinctly where Dodds had taken his rage out on her. The injuries to her head hadn't really eased, but the tenor of the pain had changed, as if the ache was from the pressure of trying to form enormous bruises, rather than immediate damage. Her thoughts were still tangled and slow. She was very thirsty.

She looked around.

It was dark now, and cold. A glance upwards told her that the shingles of the roof were no longer as tightly set as they once had been, and thin slivers of moonlight shone through the cracks. Thoughts bubbled up from an earlier time in her life:

 _Waxing gibbous_ , she mused, wearily. _Expansion and growth. The perfect time to focus on breaking free if you are feeling cooped up, or trapped in a negative situation._

Grace gave what would have been a hollow laugh if her body hadn't objected; it came out as more of a gurgle.

From the moon's height in the sky she guessed it must be late in the evening – around midnight, perhaps. It was hard to tell when you were new to an area. She wished she had a more accurate means of telling the time.

Dodds was still sitting on the barrel, silent and solid. His face was in shadow and it was impossible to tell if he was awake or asleep. Grace fervently hoped for the latter. His sister was asleep, her head and arm still draped across his leg. She could hear her snoring faintly. The children, when Grace had manoeuvred herself around to look at them were both sleeping fitfully, huddled as close together as the metal fence and their tethers would allow. Everything in the barn was still and quiet.

 _Should I risk it?_ she wondered, taking another long look at Dodds.

His head was forward, as though his chin could be resting on his chest.

Grace looked up at her arms, still suspended above her; the bare flesh was pale and achingly numb, except where the deep, purple-black bruise of the break had spread beneath her skin. She was so very tired.

 _I ought to try,_ she decided. _Even if it doesn't work, at least I'll know. And if it doesn't… well, this guy isn't about to listen to me – and nor is his sister. The guys will come – I know they will. But… I should give the kids a fighting chance if I can._

She weighed her options, steeling herself.

 _No harm in giving myself a boost…_

Biting her lip until she could taste fresh blood, she focussed on the knots binding her wrists, picturing them slowly slipping loose. For a moment, nothing happened – and then again, on the point of when something should have started moving, the image she had of them in her mind blurred, her head throbbing. A new wave of nausea washed over her and she gagged, squeezing her eyes shut until the feeling passed.

 _That should have worked,_ she thought, when the dizziness subsided. _The energy in even a drop of blood ought to be enough to blow the door of the barn off. What is wrong with me?_

She shivered, and then shivered more strongly. The night air appeared to have taken on an extra chill. Faint whistles in the walls suggested the wind outside was picking up, too. Overhead, the moon disappeared between fast moving clouds, plunging the building into a deeper darkness.

"Oh, great," Grace muttered, as the first, fat raindrops began to fall on the roof. "Just my bloody luck."

 _So my magic_ is _working – it's just my aim is off. Bloody concussion. Great work, Pearce,_ she scolded herself silently. _Of all the things you could have usefully done, you made it sodding rain._

She looked up as a fork of lightning split the sky outside, briefly illuminating everything inside the barn in a series of violently white stripes where the gaps in the walls and ceiling let it in. The after-images burned in her pupils for a moment before a crack of thunder sounded almost directly overhead. The other occupants of the barn awoke with a start: the children cried out in alarm; Harriet pressed her fingers to her mouth and scuttled backwards until she reached the wall; Dodds got to his feet so fast the barrel fell over, cursing loudly.

"Oh hell," he said, calming down. "Harriet, it's just a storm. Get the torch."

But Harriet merely moaned in fear.

"Do I have to do everything myself?" Dodds demanded. "Useless fucking bitch. Fine." There was the sound of someone cracking an ankle against something solid, and a grunt of pain.

Though it was none of her doing, Grace felt giddily vindictive about it, allowing herself a grim smile while the darkness still concealed it.

"Got it," he announced, and a thin beam of yellow light pieced the gloom. It swept straight to where Harriet was crying in the corner. "Shut your fucking mouth, woman."

She didn't so much stop crying as simply continue entirely silently. Grace, despite Harriet's actions, hated him all the more for it, and all the past pain it implied.

As if he could sense her hatred, the torchlight flicked abruptly at Grace, half-blinding her. She grimaced against it and he turned it away again, apparently satisfied she was where he thought she ought to be.

"I'm cold."

Grace's heart constricted. She tried to communicate that it was unwise to speak up at this point with her face, but it was too dark, now for the children to see.

"Kerry, shush!" her brother hissed.

"No, I won't! I'm cold and I'm thirsty and I want to go home!" she moaned, a deep sound in her throat that suggested she was on the verge of having a proper wail.

And no surprise, really, given the circumstances.

"Shut your mouth!" Dodds growled, but Kerry was too upset. Her home life had been pleasant and safe, and the thought that being upset could get you in trouble simply hadn't occurred to her.

With all the might a seven year old could muster, she stamped her foot on the dusty ground and shouted. "NO!" I want my DADDY!"

The blow was fast and fierce, and would have knocked her over if she hadn't been tied to her brother. She squealed and Grace shouted hoarsely.

"Don't you hit my sister!" Milo yelled, startled out of his own fear. It earned him a nasty slap, too.

The two siblings huddled against one another, hurt and frightened.

"Stop it!" Grace yelled. "You want to hurt someone, you fucking coward, hit me! I can take it! I can take anything you give me, you pathetic little shit! What, is the only way you can get it up with kids?"

The butt of the torch plunged into Grace's abdomen with vicious force. It hurt like hell, but at least he was focussing on her and not the children. Adrenaline surged through her; she laughed, half-mad, and spat in his face.

"That all you got?"

He raised his fist again, but to Grace's surprise it didn't fall.

"Noah," said Harriet, in a quiet voice. "Come away, Noah and I'll go out and get you somethin' to eat."

He was breathing heavily, fury still etched onto his features, close enough that Grace could smell the sweat and anger pouring out of him.

"Come away now." She was speaking almost gently, and it shouldn't have worked – not after the way he had treated her – but it did.

He took a step back, and then another.

Still panting hard, Grace wondered how often that quiet, half-mad, battered woman had put herself between Noah's fists and the boys she had abducted for him.

 _The disposal sites are her choice_ , she realised. _And the Zolpidem. She wanted to give them peace, at the end._

"Alright," he said, at last, and the world seemed to relax, as if a spell had been broken. "Alright. I know what to do."

"You do?" Harriet asked, sounding hopeful.

"We take them away," he said. "Like we always do. I'll have the boy. He ain't right, but I'll manage."

Against the wall, Milo went white as a sheet, though he couldn't yet know the full implications of that statement.

Grace was hard pressed to keep her mouth shut. She was glad it was dark enough neither of them could see her expression.

"You keep the girl."

"I can?" Harriet exclaimed, with unexpected glee. She clapped her hands, the sound seeming loud and hollow in the dense, rain-walled place.

Kerry started crying more loudly.

"If you teach her manners."

"Oh, I will! I will! You'll see!" she cried, happily. "She'll be good – you'll see, Noah. She'll be good as gold!"

"I got our things in the cart – you go out and get food. Find a car. You remember how?" he asked, the torch light falling on her horribly eager face. "Same as in Florence."

"I remember, Noah. I'll do it right."

"I'm trustin' you here, Harriet – you ain't gonna let me down again, are you?"

"No, Noah. I'll get a car and some food, and I'll be back before dawn," she said breathlessly, excited.

The beam of the torch fell away, leaving an after image of Harriet's unpleasant delight in Grace's mind.

"What about –" Harriet lowered her voice. "What about – _her_?" she asked.

Grace, guessing they meant her, prepared herself for the worst. The beam flooded her vision again, and she squinted a glare against it, hoping that they saw her open defiance and choked on it.

 _I'm not thinking straight_ , she thought, and giggled. But why was that funny? _I think I'm going to be sick…_

"I haven't decided," said Noah, and Grace forgot to keep glaring, she was so relieved. "She's a fucking nuisance. We can't take her with us, and if I leave her, she knows our faces," he said slowly. "But killin' an FBI agent, that's a whole other ballpark. I don't know. I gotta think."

 _Take all the time you need,_ Grace thought, grinning madly as the torchlight swung away again.

A long drip of water fell on Dodds' head and he swore, rubbing it away. "You get what we need. Take the raincoat. I'm gonna sleep in the cart." He paused by the door, looking back over his shoulder at Grace. "Maybe I'll decide in the morning."


	14. Dawn Chorus

**Essential listening: Novocaine for the Soul, by Eels**

 **0o0**

"Can you tell us why you're focussing on African American men?"

"Who is doing this? Are our children safe?"

"Your team has been accused of institutional racism, what have you got to say about that?"

"Why won't you release a statement, Agent Jareau?"

"As it happens, I do have a statement for you," said JJ, waving to allow the assembled reporters closer.

She was back at the Police Department, helping Seward keep a lid on things. Child murders and abductions were hard enough on a town without everyone getting antsy and trying to racially profile their neighbours. With the media stirring as hard as they could it would only be a matter of time before someone got nervous and accidentally shot a neighbour just going about their business.

Still, 4 a.m. was too goddamn early for a press conference.

"As you know, early yesterday morning, Kerry and Milo Grayling, both aged seven, were abducted from the garden of their neighbour's house. They are the fourth and fifth children to go missing in Peachtree City in the last month. We are looking at this abduction in connection with the murders of three other young boys: Dylan Ferris, Rufus Caradine and Charles Colson."

"Are you saying we have a serial killer?" a man in the front asked.

JJ stared for a moment at his horrible tie. "Yes, we are."

The burble of muttering rose a notch; JJ let it. They would ask their questions and she would allow them to think they were controlling her, then they'd tie themselves in knots about the race aspect, and then she would finally be able to do her job.

"Are you still looking for an African American man?"

"Yes," JJ responded.

"Why?"

"What evidence do you have?"

"It's unconstitutional!"

 _It would be,_ JJ thought, _if we actually were being racist._

She raised a hand and called them momentarily to order. "Based on witness statements from the earlier abductions we sought and interviewed owners of a faded, blue pick-up truck, believed to belong to an African American woman."

"Women now!"

"You don't know what you're doing – it's question of safety!"

"Agent Jareau –"

JJ took a deep breath, hating to use her friend's disappearance this way. But then, Grace would probably understand. She was one of them. "At one of these addresses, yesterday afternoon, Supervisory Special Agent Grace Pearce was seriously assaulted and abducted, we believe by this woman and her brother." She held up first a picture of Grace, looking painfully whole and well, then of the Cooks.

There was a momentary gasp of silence, and then all the questions began rushing back.

"What did Agent Pearce do to provoke an attack?"

"How do you know it was them?"

"This is racial profiling – they could have been framed!"

"Doug, do you even hear yourself? The agent was attacked _at their house_."

JJ shot the middle-aged reporter with the pink blouse a grateful look.

"Evidence recovered from the house in question strongly suggests that these two individuals are involved in the child abduction and murder cases we have been investigating. Harriet and Noah Dodds are being sought in connection with these abductions and the murders of several children in neighbouring states over the last twenty years."

This announcement was greeted by shocked silence.

"They have changed their names several times and have been known to use false ID. Details of these are available in this release," she added, handing the nearest journalist a stack of handouts. "Both of these people are considered armed and extremely dangerous, and we advise the public not to approach them. If you see them, or have any information as to the whereabouts of Kerry and Milo Grayling, or Agent Pearce, please call the tip-line. Thank you."

She walked quickly back into the building, leaving a trail of eager questions as to Grace's family circumstances in her wake. As soon as the door closed behind her, she made a beeline for Seward's office.

"That oughtta keep them off our back for at least half an hour," the Chief mused. "Your team just got back – they're meeting in the back, away from the glare of cameras."

JJ thanked her, glad the department had such a steady hand at the tiller. "Anything come in?"

"Nothin' useful." The older woman scowled. "Dodds' co-workers are shocked, but in that way they ain't really shocked at all. Seems like he was real polite, but no one really liked him. Like he gave people the creeps."

"That fits the profile," said JJ, as the two of them made their way to where the rest of the team where attempting to refuel on coffee and hope.

Morgan and Hotch were pacing; Reid was flicking feverishly through a stack of reports, trying to find anything they might have missed; Emily was cursing at the coffee machine; Rossi was on the phone, raising every contact he had who worked in the states they'd identified, in case any of them had worked on the cases of the earlier missing children.

She rested a hand on Spencer's arm; he didn't even flinch – just patted her hand and reached for the next file.

 _It must be chewing him up_ , she thought. _The way he feels about her…_

Emily gave her a weary and painful smile. "Garcia catch you up?"

"Yeah, about an hour ago," she replied. "Anything new?"

"Nothin'," Morgan complained, throwing himself into a chair.

"I got roadblocks up every which way outta town – assuming they're still in it," said Seward. "An APB out on their cart, and descriptions of both out to all officers."

"The media are broadcasting their details, too," JJ added.

Chief Seward nodded. "I guess we gotta hope someone spots something and calls it in."

Morgan shot her a sour look, but she didn't take it personally.

Hotch, still engaged in wearing a furrow in the carpet panels, abruptly stopped and dug in his pocket for his cell phone. "Garcia?" he asked, answering it. "Okay, I'm putting you on speaker."

" _Okay, is everybody listening? Because I got juice and I don't know which bits you need to help our girl."_

"Harry, I gotta go. I'll call you back," Rossi murmured, discreetly hanging up on an old colleague. If he was law enforcement, he would understand.

"We're all ears, Garcia, go ahead," said Emily, taking a seat beside Reid, who had stopped reading and was instead fiddling with something shiny, just out of sight beneath the lip of the table. The glint of it caught JJ's eye momentarily; she wondered what it was.

" _Roger. Noah Cook, born 1969; his sister Harriet, 1973. Father, Alan, worked as a mechanic, mother, Rosalie, was a homemaker. Both kids are described as bright and interested in their school records until about 1977 – though it does say that Harriet 'is a little slow', which I guess is 1970s for dyslexia."_

"What happened in 1977?" Hotch queried, gently prodding her back on task.

" _I was getting to that. Autumn 1997, Rosalie Cook died – congenital heart disease. Left little Noah and Harriet with their dad taking care of them – and I'm not sure he did."_

"Abuse?" Rossi asked.

" _All the signs you guys tell me are classic,"_ she informed them, sounding angry. _"Both kids' grades slipped. Harriet came in with bruises, unwashed clothes. Noah's report says he's 'sullen and withdrawn'."_

"So, physical abuse for Harriet," said Emily sourly. "Not for Noah?"

"Different kind, maybe," said Morgan, and everyone failed to meet his eyes, remembering the secrets they had uncovered about his childhood, long ago in Chicago.

" _It got so bad that when she was a teenager, the school wrote home to Mr Cook, like the good concerned citizens they were, and – guess what? He suddenly discovered his daughter was too sick to go to school. Ever again."_

Seward gave a low whistle. "He kept her out of school so he could keep whaling on her? Mean old bastard."

" _You got it, voice of friend I don't know yet,"_ said Garcia. _"Noah Cook left home as soon as he was able, joined the Air Force at seventeen and waited out his basic training before shipping out. He served in Iran, Iraq, Panama, Saudi Arabia and Iraq again. He took part in the humanitarian air-lift in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992, and refused leave on multiple occasions."_

"He knew what was waiting for him at home," Rossi remarked.

" _The Air Force Police didn't wanna give me his file, but as soon as I mentioned the kids… Anyway, Cook did okay in the Air Force until Bosnia, when he started having issues. He became insubordinate and increasingly violent, and was eventually dishonourably discharged in December 1992."_

"That's right before Marcus Webb and Jason Gibbs disappeared," JJ observed.

" _Ya, and about the same time, Daddy dearest succumbed to testicular cancer. I'm not saying he deserved it, but –"_

"Garcia, when was he diagnosed?" Hotch asked.

" _Uh… Early '92."_

"The same time Noah started going off the rails?" Rossi asked, clearly catching Hotch's drift.

" _Oh, you are smart cookies,"_ Garcia exclaimed. For a moment she almost sounded her usual bubbly self, but then she subsided.

"That's your trigger," said the senior agent, slapping the table hard enough to make Reid jump.

" _I don't have too much more than that,"_ she apologised, sounding miserable. _"I can tell you our major-league creeper didn't come across Zolpidem in the Air Force. I asked the AAP and they told me they weren't using it on the same scale back then."_

"How?" Reid asked, unusually terse.

" _I don't know why I wasn't expecting it to be unpleasant, but… I got a record of Nathan Derringer signing up his baby sister Haley for a bunch of vaguely shady programs in Florence, South Carolina, testing out various pharmaceuticals for cash. One of them was the effect of sleeping pills on adult ADHD – 'Haley' was in one of the patient group that got Zolpidem."_

"And he's made sure she got it ever since," said Emily. "God."

"She must have saved it up a little at a time, knowing he'd want her to dispose of the boys," Rossi said, with a grimace. "She was trying to be kind."

"Their father's abuse must have stunted their emotional growth," Morgan reflected. "And laid the seeds for Noah to become the abuser."

"Maybe that's why neither of them could let go of the past," Reid mused.

"How do you mean?" Emily asked.

"Yeah, man – their house had the fewest mementos I've ever seen."

"They – Noah – kept pictures of their father, even though he abused them both. He kept the comic. The bear might have been his – or Harriet's. She had the picture from when their mother was alive under her pillow."

"What are you seeing?" Hotch asked, watching the young agent's face intently.

Again, there was a flash of silver in the corner of JJ's eye as he shoved something back in his pocket. "Nostalgia. Hey, Garcia?"

" _Right here."_

"You ran a search for any property in the area listed under the Cooks' names and aliases, right?"

" _Of course I did!"_ she protested. _"D'you think I'd miss a step as simple as that with our 007 on the line?"_

"No, no," he said quickly, attempting to diffuse her annoyance. They were all under enough strain as it was. "I mean maybe we were looking for the wrong name. Run a search for anything under Rosalie Cook."

" _Oh my God, why didn't I think of that?"_ Garcia demanded of the air.

"The mother…" Rossi murmured.

JJ's breath caught in her throat. This could be it. Across the table, Emily was already halfway out of her seat. Morgan was shifting from foot to foot, itching to get out there and on the hunt. Hotch, immovable as ever, glared down at his cell phone as if it had done him a personal injury.

" _Nothing. Damn it!"_

"What about her maiden name – do you have that in her records?"

" _Ennis! Rosalie Ennis…"_

Every second seemed to stretch out into an eternity. JJ's fingernails dug into the back of Reid's chair.

" _YES! Oh my God, Spencer, you really are a genius!"_ Garcia nearly shouted, typing urgently. _"There's a workshop registered to a Rosalie Lucy Ennis south of Peachtree City in Cowetta County – off Keg Creek!"_

"Dispatch," started Seward, into her radio. "I need all responders ready."

" _I sent the address to your beepers,"_ Garcia announced, voice tight with emotion. _"Now, bring our girl home, or so help me –"_

They didn't hear the rest; Hotch disconnected the call.

"How long will it take us to get out there?" he asked, as the other agents scurried around, checking maps, rechecking body armour.

JJ pulled hers over her head and tried to plug her radio in with clumsy fingers. Emily, who was already done with hers, came to her rescue.

"Half an hour at least, even breaking the speed limit," Seward told him.

"Then let's get moving."

0o0

The rain had eventually stopped, leaving small puddles of liquid dust on the floor of the barn.

At some point in the last few hours, the cold seemed to have settled into Grace's bones. She felt brittle and exhausted, but she knew falling asleep would do her wrists and shoulders no good – and she didn't like the idea of Dodds coming back in when she had her eyes shut. In her present condition she might not be able to put up much of a fight if – _when_ – it came to it, but she was damn well going to try. The thought of him looming up without her knowing it sent shivers through her weary frame.

Besides, the children were too frightened to sleep. They had cried themselves out, and the cold had really started to make them shiver and sniff, so Grace had tried to distract them by teaching them songs.

She taught them the one she had sung to Henry, which her mother had sung to her, and a handful of others she knew from her childhood in Oxford, and they taught her a few American nursery songs she hadn't been aware of – although she did know the one about Lizzie Borden. Milo insisted on singing that one right through, with a painful kind of determination to show that he wasn't as scared as he truly was, so Grace had taught them The Grand Old Duke of York and Doctor Foster, getting them to sing in a round until their throats were hoarse from singing and they had laughed themselves back to bravery.

As time wore on, the air in the shed began to lighten, leaving the taste of a fresh, spring morning in their mouths. Dawn was beginning to streak the sky with peach and gold, just visible through the cracks in the roof. Her thoughts were increasingly muddled and she was badly dehydrated, and in pain, but it looked like being another fine, April day, and despite everything Grace's spirits lifted a little.

By now, the team would be hot on this pair's trail. They would have found the house and searched it, and they would be chasing every lead they had in order to track down the barn and its occupants. For the first time in hours, she allowed herself to feel a little hopeful.

"Are you sure they're coming for us?" Kerry asked, for about the ninth time.

"Absolutely," Grace assured her, imagining them all clustered around the situation table in the Peachtree City Police Department, listening to Garcia, or reading through files, or glaring at maps. "It's just a matter of time."

"Then we can go home," said Milo, with a huff of tired despondency.

"Then we can see Daddy," Kerry amended. "We can teach him the song about the green field and the tree – and the one about oranges."

"I expect he'll love that," said Grace, thinking of the horror and fear on the man's face when they had interviewed him the day before.

"And have breakfast! I'm so hungry, I could eat a whole stack of pancakes," Milo declared. "With a whole jug of syrup!"

"I'm so hungry I could eat a whole plate of waffles," Kerry added, in friendly competition.

Grace's stomach rumbled and she joined in: "I'm so hungry I could eat a proper English breakfast – even the black pudding."

"I'm so hungry, I could eat – I could eat a whole monkey!" Milo declared, getting into the spirit of things.

Grace snorted.

"I'm so hungry I could – I could – I could eat a whole cow!" Kerry announced, fully dedicated to one-upmanship. "With ice-cream on top!"

"Ew, gross!" said Milo, pulling a face.

"Why is ice-cream gross?" Kerry asked, mildly outraged.

"It is if it's on a cow," Grace pointed out. "It would be all hairy."

As involved in their game as they were, they didn't fail to hear the crunch of heavy footsteps approaching the barn, and all three of them fell silent as the door opened.

Dodds stepped inside, slowly casting a glare at each of them, and then closed the door behind him. Grace's heart plummeted; he was carrying a shotgun.

Silently, he walked to the bench where some of the water bottles were still standing, laid the gun down and picked up a bottle. Grace, Kerry and Milo watched him hawkishly as he slaked his thirst, unable to take their eyes off him. When he was done, he crumpled up the bottle, tossed it into the corner and picked up the shotgun.

Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he walked over to Grace.

She met his gaze as evenly as she could, given the circumstances.

"I know what to do with you, now," said Dodds, and then gave her a horrible, thin-lipped sneer. "Interferin' women belong in the ground."

What little warmth she had left her. Her breathing seemed over-loud.

Was he going to do it right here? In front of the kids?

Would he walk her to an open grave?

Would he make her dig it herself?

A deep, distant instinct awoke inside her.

 _I've got to take as much of him with me as I can_ , she thought, with awful clarity. _Then, when they find me, they can tie it to him._

A sudden image flashed in her mind of her friends gathered around an autopsy table, the sheet drawn back. Garcia would be inconsolable; JJ would be quiet; Morgan would be angry; Hotch would be silent and grave; Spencer –

 _Oh, Spencer…_

Fleetingly, she thought of his anxious face; those warm brown eyes; the smile he had on his face when he was trying not to laugh; his gentle hand on the small of her back; kissing in the rain; the way he'd looked at her the night Father Silvano had been deported back to the Vatican.

He'd be okay. The others would have his back.

Her thoughts were racing, she thought, or else Dodds was travelling particularly slowly. Her eyes never left him as he laid the gun on the ground and reached up to unhook her.

 _Someone will need to telephone London,_ she thought. _The Guv' will tell the others. They'll come over for the funeral. All except Alice._

 _Oh gods, Alice. She's already lost enough._

 _So have I._

 _It isn't fair._

That particular thought was interrupted by Dodd's rank breath on her face as he reached for her bound wrists.

 _This is my one chance_ , she thought. _Better make it count, Kid Vicious._

It hurt like blazes when he roughly yanked her arms free, but he wasn't expecting any resistance – and the shotgun was still on the floor. Taking a rapid breath and gritting her teeth against the pain, Grace drew her head back and nutted Dodds as hard as she could. They crashed to the floor, separated by a few inches.

She had the element of surprise, but he had the advantage of not being injured, so as she struggled back to her feet, he kicked out and hit the back of her leg, bringing her back down with a crack to her knees that knocked the air clean out of her.

Blearily, she saw him reaching for the gun. She threw herself forward, her hands still bound and almost useless, and did the only thing she could think of.

He howled as her teeth closed on his arm and he tried to throw her off, but Grace was fuelled by fear and rage. She balled up her fists as much as her fingers would bend, damaged and bound up as they were, and brought both down on his head as hard as she could.

For a time they scuffled and writhed on the floor, and Grace had no thoughts except kicking and biting and scratching – anything to keep him away from the gun – but somehow she found herself pinned to the floor, her face pressed into the dirt and Dodds' knee in the small of her back.

 _This is it_ , she thought. _Bugger._

She spat out the dirt and blood in her mouth and snarled at the kids, who were out of her eye-line, "Close your eyes – and don't ever give up hope! _Not ever!_ "

"Shut your fucking mouth!" Dodds bellowed, and hit her between the shoulder blades with the butt of the shotgun.

Coughing and spluttering, she felt his knee lift from her back. Dodds planted one foot firmly on the ground, either side of her legs. Grace heard him click the barrel closed and imagined him taking aim, the blood rushing in her ears like thunder. She closed her eyes and thought of her friends at the BAU. All her old friends in London. Alice. The Guv'. Her father. Michael.

Her breath came in quick pants, anticipating the hail of shot that would obliterate her –

But it never came.

Grace counted to twenty, then tentatively raised her head. Why hadn't Dodds taken the shot? She could see – oh gods – she could see his shadow standing over her, the barrel aimed at her skull, but he seemed to be looking up, not at her.

 _What…?_

He let out a strangled yell – making Grace flinch badly – then a stream of expletives that would have put a seventeenth century London dockworker to shame.

And then she heard them, over the roar of blood in her ears.

Sirens.

Sirens and engines.

Heading their way.

 _Hope is the thing with feathers_ , she thought.

But then Dodds gave a roar of rage and kicked Grace in the head. Everything went red and hazy for a moment, and then suddenly she was on her back, staring up at the roof beams. She brought her hands up to protect her face, but this time he kicked her in the stomach.

Instinctively curling into a ball, Grace screamed when he grabbed a fistful of her hair and dragged her towards the doors. The sound of those sirens had awakened a dangerous hope in her, and she kicked and screamed and fought him for every inch.

Given her injuries and exhaustion (and the latest knock to her head), she was no real match for him.

Soon she was aware of daylight through the haze of pain and nausea. She had the vague impression of being surrounded by trees. Someone was shouting – it might have been Dodds. It might have been anyone. There were other voices, too; raised, unhappy.

 _Something familiar about those,_ Grace registered dimly.

And then she was deposited on her knees, Dodds still yelling words she couldn't quite get hold of, the cold double barrel of the shotgun pressed into her neck, blinking stupidly at a line of police cars and SUVs.


	15. Execution Drive

**Essential listening: Over My Head, by The Fray**

 **0o0**

They saw the door of one of the old sheds open as the Yuke they were in screeched to a halt.

Years of FBI training propelled Emily out of the vehicle and into cover behind its door, her gun resting and ready between the door and the body of the car, without really considering what was happening. When she was in place, however, the fact that she was watching a very angry serial killer drag her close friend out of the barn by her hair resolved with painful clarity.

Beside her, she heard Reid take a sharp intake of breath.

For the first time, Emily wondered whether the departmental rules that theoretically replaced a team whose members were under duress with other agents might actually have a point. She definitely felt compromised. Not that wild horses could have got any of them out of there until their friend was safe.

And she was definitely alive, which was a tempered relief – kicking and scratching at the man who had her life in her hands almost blindly, like some feral thing.

"God, look at her," JJ – on the far side of the car – muttered, gaping at the dried blood and bruises, and the general pallor of their friend.

"Drop your weapon and get down on the ground!" Hotch yelled, from somewhere off to Emily's right.

"NO FUCKING WAY!" Cook shouted back, pushing Grace to her knees in front of him, the twin barrels of the shotgun pressed into the back of her neck.

"Drop your weapon!"

"I'LL SHOOT THE BITCH! I'LL SHOOT HER!"

Even from twenty feet away, Emily could see that Grace's eyes were unfocused. She was staring blearily ahead; Emily didn't even know if she could see them.

 _Were the kids okay?_ She wondered. _Was Harriet Cook in the barn still, administering a fatal dose of Zolpidem? Cleaning up her brother's mess?_

"Drop your weapon," Hotch shouted again, outwardly sounding entirely calm.

Only the members of the BAU, who had done this a hundred times with him, could hear the note of naked terror in his voice.

"You're completely surrounded," Chief Seward yelled. "Give up now – make it easier on yourself."

"I'M NOT GOING TO FUCKING PRISON!" Cook half-screamed, spittle flying everywhere.

He gave Grace a rough shove with the shotgun, so she fell awkwardly onto her hands; she cried out and clutched her left wrist to her chest. Emily tightened her grip on her gun, keeping it trained on the bastard's head.

"Get down on the ground!" This time it was Morgan, from the far end of the line of cars. "C'mon man, put the gun down and let her go! It doesn't have to end like this!"

But Noah Cook was too far gone to listen. "SHE RUINED EVERYTHING!"

Emily felt herself go numb.

 _He's gonna shoot her._

 _He's gonna shoot her in the head in front of us._

 _And then go down in a hail of bullets._

 _That's his endgame now._

He took aim; a shot rang out and Grace sort of slumped sideways onto the ground.

Reid made a strangled sort of noise; JJ gasped sharply; Emily went cold, right to the centre of her being. Everything seemed to be travelling excruciatingly slowly, the way things did when you were hyperaware. Then Cook dropped the rifle and fell backwards.

Everyone sprang into action. Morgan and Rossi sprinted out from their section to check Cook was disabled – or dead, if the black mark in the centre of his forehead was anything to go by. They gave a shout that it was all clear; on the ground, Grace lifted an arm and pointed at the barn behind her, and Morgan yelled for some of Seward's team to follow him inside. He and Rossi shot them a look, but Emily was already moving.

She and Reid reached their stricken friend as Rossi and Morgan took position either side of the door of the barn.

Grace was lying awkwardly on the ground, her legs still caught beneath her, one arm clutched tight to her chest, the other slung across her eyes. Emily thought she was probably crying, but she didn't blame her. A well-placed glance behind her told the others that their friend was relatively whole. A second told her that Hotch was lowering his still-smoking gun, calling for the ambulances to be let through the cordon on his radio.

Between them, she and Reid gathered her up and got her on her feet. They helped her stumble through the SUVs and out the back, where the ambulance would be able to park, their arms securely about her waist. All the time, Grace was trying to tell them about the kids, who were apparently back in the barn, and Noah's sister, who was God only knew where.

"The kids – they're in – they're in the –"

"Morgan and Rossi are on it," said Emily. "We got it." She looked at the barn. "I'm going to help the others – can you?" she said to Reid, who nodded, and took the rest of Grace's weight.

She sort of folded against him, hiding her face against his flak jacket and shaking hard. Emily tried not to notice how white Reid was, or the way his hands trembled when he slipped the pocket watch he had taken from the kitchen into Grace's pocket. Since it had vanished from the drawer, they had all been Not Mentioning its absence, suspecting where it had been; now it would be excised from the report entirely, by mutual, unspoken consent.

"But, the kids – the barn. Harriet –" Grace said again, and this time Emily heard the little hitches in her breath that suggested an oncoming panic attack.

Reid had heard them too. "Okay," he said, in a weird, urgent mix of professional calm and cold fear, moving his grip on her so he could hold her and make her look at him at the same time. "Grace? You need to breathe. You're having a panic attack and I can't double you over because you may have internal injuries. Okay? Try to breathe more evenly."

She must have been paying attention, because Emily saw the rhythm of her shoulders ease a little. Reid rubbed her back, meeting Emily's eyes over their friend's head. There was fear there, relief, continued anxiety for her well-being, and something else – something very raw.

"That's it. You're safe – we got you," he mumbled. Grace nodded, squeezing her eyes shut and focussing on her breathing. She allowed her head to fall against Reid's neck. He closed his eyes, briefly, still muttering comforting things, and Emily suddenly had the bizarre feeling – as she sometimes did around these two – that she had intruded on something private. Then he opened them and suddenly they were just two agents again, navigating yet another horrible day. "It's okay, Gracie."

"You're okay now," said Emily, briefly resting her hand on her friend's shoulder, convincing herself she was real. "We got this."

"We got you," Reid amended, tightly. "Just hang on, the ambulance –"

It arrived, almost prophetically, and pulled up against the tree-line.

Emily turned away, ready to re-join the unit searching the surrounding woodland. She met JJ's eyes across an SUV. It was over.

Their team was whole again.

0o0

She let herself be led to the ambulance, then insisted on sitting on the step as the paramedic checked her over, rather than on the stretcher instead, claiming that she wanted to see the kids safe before she went in properly, which was only half true. She _did_ want to see them safely removed from that horrible place, but mostly it was because after spending so long confined in the barn she felt an initial and dizzying horror at being so contained inside the ambulance.

Both Reid and the EMTs appeared to have sensed it, so they hadn't put up much of an argument yet.

Plus, from here she could see the rest of the team, working their way around the barn and outbuildings, and among the trees. Some of them were keeping the press – who had been allowed nearer, now the all clear had been sounded – firmly on the other side of the crime scene tape. It was comforting, and right now she really needed that.

Everything still hurt like hell, but her breathing seemed to have returned to normal, at least. She didn't feel quite so panicked. She imagined she would probably feel embarrassed about that later on, but right now she just didn't have the energy.

"God I'm thirsty," she croaked, and Reid, who was still standing like a thin, gangly sentinel at her side, looked up from his silent study of her wounds.

"Hey man, you got any water?" he asked the paramedic, who nodded and threw him a bottle over Grace's head.

So far, he had been almost entirely silent, instead of vocally trying to diagnose every injury she had, for which she was grateful.

"Here."

"You're going to have to unscrew it," she said wearily, eyeing the bottle. "My hands don't work."

"Oh – God, I'm so stupid – suspended ligature – um, sorry," he mumbled, and unscrewed it for her. "Can you hold it?"

"Just about." She took a sip, which tasted like heaven after a day and a half with nothing, so she drank deeply and gratefully. It was gone far more quickly than she'd have liked. "Thanks," she said, and he took the bottle back.

He stood there, frowning down at her, and for a moment, she thought he was about to say something.

"You okay?"

They both looked up as Hotch appeared at the door of the ambulance, looking unflappable as usual – but still somehow tense, like his self-control had crystallised into an impenetrable mask about a day earlier and wasn't about to move any time soon.

"Been better," she admitted. "Sorry boss. Should've seen it coming."

He shook his head, casting his gaze away for a moment. It was that, more than anything else that gave him away.

Grace looked at her knees. Not since leaving London and the Guv' behind had she felt so much like a small child talking to a parent. Suddenly – unexpectedly – it made her miss her old team with unusual intensity.

"In no way was any of that your fault," Hotch said, when he had regained control.

She made herself look up and nod.

"It could have been any one of us. I shouldn't have sent people out alone."

It was Grace's turn to shake her head. "Nah," she said lightly. "Don't do that. I could've left; I didn't. It was just a thing that happened – no one really to blame, except…"

Her gaze went to Cook's body, which someone from Seward's team was covering with a tarp.

"Still, you're safe now," said Hotch, brisk again. He looked at Reid. "Stay with her."

Reid didn't so much reply as mouth the word. "Sir."

Satisfied, Hotch stalked away to coordinate further searches for Harriet.

"Poor Harriet," Grace muttered, watching him go. "I almost hope she gets away. I mean, she was all for killing me, but she thought I was…" She shook her head again. It didn't matter.

"She killed those boys," said Reid, though he wasn't really arguing. Both of them knew Harriet wouldn't have killed anyone without her brother's brutality and insistence.

Suddenly, his expression changed.

Warily, Grace peered around the door of the ambulance. Rossi was leading Kerry and Milo across towards them. When she saw Grace, Kerry broke into a run.

"You're okay!" she cried, and flung herself at Grace, followed closely by her brother. "We thought – we thought –"

"Hi," she said, trying not to grimace as they collided with her bruises. The paramedic had to dodge out of their way. "See, I _told_ you these guys would find us." She looked up fondly at Rossi and Reid – and JJ, who was navigating through the forest of cars in their general direction. "Best team in the world."

"Aw, you're just saying that to get out of paperwork," said Rossi, with the air of someone being put upon. He held her gaze for a moment, silently checking on her welfare.

She gave him a half-smile. "Got a broken wrist, can't type. Got to get out of it somehow."

He chuckled and, seeing that the kids were being absorbed by the paramedics, and that Reid and JJ were there to keep an eye on Grace, he moved on.

"Speaking of your wrist," said the paramedic. "I need to get that stabilised. You're gonna need an x-ray when we get to hospital."

Over his shoulder, Rossi made his parting shot. "Just so you know, Morgan said if you're not okay he's getting more itching powder and putting it in your suitcase."

Grace laughed, even though it hurt.

"He sounds mean," said Milo, eyes wide. "He's going to put itching powder in your clothes!"

"Who, Morgan? No – he's cool," said Grace, distracted. "Hey JJ."

"Hey, you good?"

"Paramedic can't even get to me over all the people checking on me," she said, with enough of a grin to tell JJ she was completely fine with that.

The paramedic scowled, looping a sling around Grace's shoulder.

JJ laughed, and if it sounded a little higher than usual, no one commented. It had been that sort of a day. She squatted down in front of the kids. "Hi," she said. "I'm JJ. Uh, I'm gonna call your dad and he's gonna come out here and meet you," she told them. "And you can ride together to hospital. Is that okay?"

"Daddy's coming?" Kerry asked, sounding mightily relieved, as her brother exclaimed, "Yes!"

Every part of her hurt and she was certain she was going to have nightmares about that shed and the appalling man with the shotgun, probably for the rest of her life, but the open delight on Kerry and Milo's faces was worth it.

"Okay, I'm going to take you to the other ambulance so the paramedics can check you out when I'm done with the call."

She stood up and moved a few feet away, but the children hesitated.

"But what about Grace?" Milo asked, uncertain.

"I'm good," she said. "I'm fine – got my own ambulance and paramedic, and everything." She motioned at Reid with the hand that didn't hurt as much. "Even got my own armed guard."

Reid rolled his eyes. It almost felt normal, which sort of helped, somehow. She met his gaze and he wordlessly moved away to join JJ, recognising that the kids needed a moment.

"You two are going to be just fine, you know that?"

They nodded, mutely.

"You remember what I said in there, when I was fighting that man?"

"Never, ever give up," said Milo, looking haunted for a moment.

Grace nodded, even though that set off explosions in the back of her head. "Never ever. You guys came through this, and I promise, one day everything will feel okay again. Even if it doesn't at first."

"Ma'am, I'm not going to stabilise your neck because frankly, if you had a spinal injury you would know about it already, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't move around so much," said the paramedic, and Grace muttered an apology and a promise to be careful.

"But… he hurt you," said Kerry, and half-lifted a hand to the bruise on her own cheek from where Dodds had struck her.

"And I survived," Grace said.

They still looked uncertain. It was funny, she reflected, how quickly a traumatic situation could create lasting camaraderie. "I'll come see you at the hospital before we go," she told them. "I promise."

"Okay," said Kerry, making up her mind.

She stepped forward again and gave Grace a fierce hug that made her entire side burn. Grace motioned for Milo to join her.

"Be good to each other," she instructed, and they nodded. "And your dad."

To her surprise, she felt tears welling up behind her eyes. _Must be exhaustion,_ she told herself.

"Right, well…"

It happened without warning, when everyone had been lulled into a sense of security now Dodds was dead and the children and Grace were safe. Consequently, when Harriet burst from the treeline a few metres from Grace and the children and ran screaming towards them, an axe raised above her head, shrieking that they had killed her brother, for a few seconds no one knew how to react.

Everything happened very fast.

Grace, who was still hyperaware, shoved the children behind her, preparing to rugby tackle the woman if she had to. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Reid and JJ start to react, fumbling with the guns at their belts. The paramedic ducked behind one of the machines on the ambulance, trying to beckon to the kids to climb up and get behind something solid. Rossi and Hotch, out of Grace's eyeline, gave shouts of alarm.

Then Harriet stopped running, dropping the axe, and collapsed.

Breathing hard, Grace looked around to see Chief Seward pointing her gun at the woman who was now writhing on the ground, clutching her shoulder.

"Get another ambulance out here," she said, to one of her officers, who scrambled to do just that as she cuffed the woman – mindful of her gunshot wound – and moved her to the back of one of the cars. "Could do with a first aid kit," she called over her shoulder, and the second EMT jumped down from the cab of the ambulance and went to render aid, repeatedly muttering 'Holy crap' under his breath.

"You two okay?" Grace asked, as Reid and JJ arrived beside them and demanded the same thing.

They looked shaken and frightened, but otherwise alright.

"Okay, change of plan," said JJ, looking at them. "I'm going to call your dad and have him meet us at the hospital – I'm going there with you right now."

"Which is where we're also going," said Reid, looping an arm back around Grace's waist as JJ took the kids' hands and led them away. "Right now."

She was grateful. Her legs didn't appear to be working. She felt utterly drained.

"Yeah," said the paramedic, in a slightly higher octave than before. "Here, let's get you strapped in. Mike can meet us back at the hospital."

Together, he and Reid got her into the chair – mercifully not the stretcher – and strapped in.

"You riding in with us?" the EMT asked and Reid nodded.

"You don't have to hover, Reid," Grace commented mildly, though privately (and not without a little guilt) she was hoping he would stay.

"Uh, I do have to, actually," he said, as the paramedic unfolded the other chair and sorted out the belt for it. "Hotch gave me an order – told me to stay with you." He gestured at the paramedic. "You heard him, right?"

"Uh, yeah," said the EMT, glancing at them both. "Yeah, I heard him."

"See? License to hover," said Reid firmly, and sat down.

Grace looked from one man to the other and let out a hoarse chuckle. "I see how it is. Ganging up on me."

"Yes ma'am," said the paramedic, in all seriousness. "If it means you stay put."

Gratefully, she rested her head against the back of the chair. Distantly she could hear the paramedic making arrangements to meet his colleague back at the hospital before he closed the doors and hurried around the front to the cab.

"Hey Reid?" she said, eyes still shut.

"Yeah?"

"Everybody else okay?"

He gave a little huff that could almost have been a chuckle it hadn't been so thick. "Uh… now we are. Yeah."

Gently, he took her hand and squeezed it.

0o0

As with all cases of this nature, after the initial euphoria of the rescue, there was the inevitable, anticlimactic untangling of all the details to be done.

Once all injured parties had been installed at the hospital (and Harriet, who had been distressed to the point of accidentally hurting herself, had been sedated), statements had to be taken, the barn and surrounding woodland had to be searched and recorded, reports had to be written.

The media, who had managed to broadcast live a black woman saving a white woman and two black kids from a black woman had finally shut up about the race angle, and had started making factual comments again. It was a bit of a relief, though it had make Aaron wonder when they would finally live in a time and culture when media or law enforcement bias towards skin colour and background wouldn't exist.

The forensic unit had found a grave outside the barn – recent enough that it could belong to the boy who had lived in the Cook household for the last four years. Because of the media attention, the DA had finally decided to make tentative overtures to Justin Josephs' family. It was enough, too, to send teams out to other residences in other states that had been registered under 'Rosalie Ennis'. Perhaps they could begin to bring some closure to those families, too.

As it was, it was very late in the day when Aaron stuck his head around the door to his young agent's hospital room, to find her fast asleep. Reid was still watching over her, though his head was drooping. Aaron sent him out to get coffee and stretch his legs, and had read the card on the enormous bouquet of flowers without a great deal of surprise. Garcia was a quick worker.

Seeing one of his team down was a desperately uncomfortable thing, even though logically he knew that she was safe now – and that she was a capable agent who could more than take care of herself. He could barely look at her. But then, he would have felt the same whoever it had been, even Rossi. Though he might have tried to smuggle his old friend in some scotch, instead of leaving a pack of 'real' British tea on the bedside cabinet. It was the curse of leadership, feeling responsible when they were hurt.

And he was responsible, no matter what they might say.

Grace looked very small and very young in the hospital bed, her fair skin mottled with black and purple bruises.

Aaron transferred his gaze to the x-ray on the wall instead, thinking that it could easily have gone very badly indeed.

Reid returned, as if he was reluctant to leave her for too long, and handed Aaron a coffee.

"She was having nightmares," he whispered, as if he had to tell someone. "I don't want her to wake up and there be no one here."

"Not surprising," Aaron murmured. "She'll be alright." He thought, fleetingly, of Elle, and the day she had handed back her badge and gun and insisted that it wasn't the admission of guilt that they both knew it was. "We'll make sure she is."

"You guys staring at the intricacies of my inner wrist?"

They turned to find her watching them, a mildly sardonic expression on her face.

"Sorry," said Aaron. "We didn't mean to wake you."

"Wasn't really sleeping," she said, though it was obvious to both he and Reid that it was a lie. "Bloody hell," she remarked, having caught sight of the flowers. "Did Garcia send an entire florists?"

Aaron chuckled. If she was okay enough to joke, she was okay enough for him to relax a little. Reid plainly felt the same way.

"Maybe she thought she'd finish you off by giving you hay-fever," he joked, and Grace laughed, and then clutched her ribs. He winced. "Sorry."

"My fault for laughing," she said, with a grimace. "Anyway, laughing's better than not."

"I spoke with your doctor," Aaron told her, as she found a more comfortable way to sit up. "He's happy to release you to fly home tomorrow, as long as you check in with your doctor in Virginia as soon as we land."

"Awesome," said Grace, with some enthusiasm.

Her general hatred of hospitals was not lost on the team. Aaron wondered fleetingly where it had come from.

"I'm assuming I'm out of the field until this heals," she said, gingerly lifting the cast on her wrist.

It hadn't needed surgery, just a gruelling reset under local anaesthetic, so now it was merely a case of waiting the healing process out.

"I don't want you in the office at all," Aaron informed her, and raised a hand when she started to object. "That's an order." She pulled a face. "Hey, if it was you giving the orders and one of us had just gone through what you went through…?" he asked, leaving the question in the air for her to finish.

"I would tell you to stay home and recover," she responded, churlishly. "And expect the report from your psych eval' to be a pack of lies, and then let you back anyway under supervision."

Aaron raised an eyebrow, but forbore to answer the obvious challenge. Besides, she was quite right; that was pretty much how every team of workaholics in the FBI functioned. Too much time off had a way of sending people loopy; sometimes it was better to let them come back and keep them somewhere you could watch over them.

Again, he thought of Elle.

"I'll need your doctor to sign off on you coming back," he said, instead.

Grace nodded, and it looked like the movement might be less painful than before. She cleared her throat.

"Thanks for shooting him," she said, not quite meeting Aaron's eyes. "I know it's a bastard, shooting someone. But… well, I can't help feeling a little selfish in this case. So, thanks."

Aaron chuckled. "You're welcome."

She nodded again, and glanced at the water bottle. It was out of her reach and Reid made a move to fetch it for her, but she shook her head. "No, I've got it," she told him absently, and stretched out her arm.

Aaron tried not to feel too weird about it when the bottle floated obediently over to her hand. He exchanged a glance with Reid, who had to turn away and hide a smile.

 _I remember when this stuff was all make-believe,_ he thought, and shook his head.

Grace looked from one of them to the other, a faintly puzzled expression on her face. "What?"

0o0

 _Be present. Make love. Make tea. Avoid small talk. Embrace conversation. Buy a plant. Water it. Make your bed. Make someone else's bed. Have a smart mouth, and quick wit. Run. Make art. Create. Swim in the ocean. Swim in the rain. Take chances. Ask questions. Make mistakes. Learn. Know your worth. Love fiercely. Forgive quickly. Let go of what doesn't make you happy. Grow._

– _Paulo Coelho_


	16. House on Fire

**Essential listening: Fire, by Kasabian**

 **0o0**

Aaron watched his adversary closely. She was a tricky customer, this one, and he was having to use all his experience as an interrogator.

Even from a study of her body language and micro-expressions, you might suspect she was being completely truthful. But he knew better. She had tells, like everyone else, and she didn't know all of them well enough to hide them.

On the small couch he had in his office, Pearce returned his gaze steadily, with a little sardonic quirk of her eyebrow that suggested either she was perversely enjoying herself, or she wanted him to think that.

 _Honestly,_ Aaron thought, _you'd think his team would know better by now._

"You're lying to the psychiatrist."

"I'm not," she said. "I told her everything she asked – I was scrupulously honest. I even told her that I wasn't sleeping particularly well."

 _At all_ , he translated. Pearce had taken to wearing heavier makeup to hide the deep shadows beneath her eyes, but it was fooling no one on the team. Maybe civilians would fall for it; maybe that was enough for her.

"And that I knew the events in Peachtree City took a toll on me, and I'm dealing with them," she said, apparently unaware of how much she sounded like she was giving an official statement in a court. "And that I can't always cope."

 _And that's the part I'm worried about_ , thought Aaron.

"Perhaps I should rephrase," he said, delicately. "You're telling the psychiatrist exactly what she needs to hear in order to let you come back to work."

Her smile twisted a little and she looked away.

 _Yahtzee_ , he thought. _Gotcha._

"So she _has_ signed off on my return to work," she said with amusement (some of which he suspected was genuine), when she returned his gaze again.

"That is not the point," he said, with some emphasis.

To her credit, she managed to avoid rolling her eyes at him, though he could see that she was tempted.

"I was under the impression that that was exactly the point," she replied.

He said nothing, letting her speak. He thought he could trust her to know that she could be honest with him, at least.

"Then what is?" she asked, at length.

"It's important that I am confident that your return to work won't represent a danger to this team," he began.

She dropped her head to one side, raising an eyebrow. "I've been a copper a long time, Hotch. I know how to handle this."

 _Every single one of them says that. So did I. And when I did,_ you _told me to go home._

"And that it won't be a detriment to your recovery or long-term wellbeing."

She huffed, impatient, and pressed her lips together.

"So, I'm asking you to tell me honestly if you believe you are fully mentally and emotionally prepared to return to active duty."

"Aside from this," she said, tapping the sling and cast supporting her fractured, healing wrist. "I am right as rain."

He raised an eyebrow and she pulled a face.

"Alright, as ready as any of the rest of us are when we plead with you to let us come back," she amended, and this time he thought she was telling the truth.

She gave him a look and he read from it the list of things he had let slide in the past; _Burst eardrums, hypervigilance, Dilaudid addiction, conflict of interest._ He ignored it.

"I've had agents come back too soon before," he said.

Her eyes narrowed. "Elle?" she asked, and he was surprised. They barely ever spoke of her, or her untimely departure.

It was Aaron's turn to look away. "And I don't want that to happen again."

He could feel her eyes on him, but she didn't pursue the subject – which was a wise decision.

"Look, I know it's soon – and I know this isn't going to go away any time soon, no matter how much I would like a full night's sleep," she said, rather more frankly than before. "But I also know that my best support network is right here at the BAU." She paused, and gave him a grim smile. "And I know if I stay off work much longer I'm going to go completely mental."

Hotch sat back, assessing her. That he could entirely believe. He had felt the same, after New York. Too much time at home – too much time to think.

 _Alright_ , he thought.

"Answer one question," he said aloud, and she nodded. "Why did you cut your hair?"

Immediately, she looked puzzled, unconsciously raising her uninjured hand to it. About a week after the events in Georgia, she had had most of it cut off. It was fairly short now, but no less unruly. Garcia had said delightedly that it reminded her of a curly hedgehog and Pearce had laughed.

"My hair?"

"Yes."

"Er… because I wanted to?" she responded, looking at him like he'd gone mad.

"You aren't trying to distance yourself from what happened by changing your appearance?" he challenged, and some of the confusion left her countenance.

"Oh," she said. "I hadn't even thought about it like that," she admitted. "I've been thinking about doing it for months, though – ask Garcia. She's generally up on hair decisions."

He took that under advisement.

"And the timing isn't at all relevant?"

"No – well, not like that," she said, with a self-deprecating chuckle. "Honestly, ninety percent of my decision was because I was struggling to get a brush through it one-handed."

Aaron watched her with narrowed eyes for a few minutes. "Alright," he said.

She looked mildly hopeful. "Alright?"

"The psychiatrist has signed you off as fit to work, and your doctor agrees – with obvious limitations where it comes to your broken wrist. He recommended more rest, in fact."

"I'll be good, I promise," she said, with a grin that made him deeply suspicious of this statement.

"So, you can come back Monday."

"Thank you," said Pearce, looking mightily relieved.

"There are, of course, conditions."

She nodded. "Naturally."

"You're not certified for a weapon until your wrist heals and you successfully retake your exam."

"Of course."

"And I want you to stay out of situations that may turn dangerous – for the rest of the team's safety as much as yours."

"Understood."

"If you find yourself struggling I want you to remove yourself from a situation as soon as it is safe for you to do so – and then come to me."

Pearce nodded again, more soberly.

"Good." Aaron frowned. "As for your… other talents."

She waited, unusually obedient.

"It might be best if they were kept to a minimum, for the moment."

Pearce gave him a smile that suggested even if she wasn't one hundred percent back to normal yet, she was still enough recovered to think like her old self. "You mean, don't flip out and turn anyone into a frog?"

He allowed her a chuckle. "Something like that."

0o0

Spencer rounded the corner by the elevators when they chimed and was surprised to see a familiar face stepping out of them.

"Hey," he said, slowing to a stop. "Didn't expect you back."

"Well, Hotch said I was signed off, so here I am," Grace said cheerfully, with the air of someone who is perfectly aware that this was not precisely what her boss had said.

"I'm pretty sure you told me earlier he said come back Monday," Morgan observed, with a grin.

"And based on the fact that you think _Die Hard_ isn't a Christmas film, I'm not sure I can trust either your judgement or your recall," she replied flippantly.

They continued bickering as Spencer followed them into the bullpen. He'd missed her appearance for the end of her psych eval' the day before, and he had thought he would have a couple more days before she would be back full time. Her sudden appearance had knocked him off balance a little.

"Nice to see no one's pinched my chair," she said appreciatively, dropping her go bag under her desk.

Spencer nodded, going to his own desk to do the same. None of them were operating under their usual office parameters this evening; the call had been urgent, and it was nearing midnight. Consequently, they were each a little over-tired and wearing their civilian clothes. Several of them, he suspected – based largely on the state of JJ's messily tied back hair when she had picked him up – had already been asleep.

It felt a little surreal, after several weeks of Grace's absence, to have her back amongst them.

Spencer frowned down at his in-tray as Rossi wandered over and gave her a tight shoulder-hug that belied all the jokes he had made about her being made of British steel. Her empty desk and the lack of pithy gallows humour – something he might have welcomed a few short months ago – had been almost unbearable, but now she was back…

Seeing her on her knees with a gun to her head had sent him to a very dark place, figuratively speaking, and he wasn't sure how to respond to her now she was back, alive and more-or-less well, in her usual, slightly larger than life way.

Reeling somewhat, but aware of his colleagues' particular skillsets, he managed to shoot Emily a smile as Penelope gave a little squeal of joy at their friend's presence and rushed over to hug her.

Spencer gripped the back of his chair. The world seemed strangely insubstantial.

The others, of course, had checked in on her every day they had been out of the field. He'd known, as soon as Rossi and Morgan had started arguing over who would drive her home, that she would have no lack of company while she recovered. Knowing that they had it covered had allowed him to hang back a little, try to get his head straight about her – them – the way she had let him hold his hand all the way to hospital – the way his entire being had gone cold when he'd seen Dodds aim the gun at her skull. A lot of things.

He wasn't entirely sure it had worked.

"I thought you weren't back until Monday," said Emily, amused.

"Well, Morgan was making me watch _Bad Boys II_ when the call came in," she said warmly. Emily laughed; she had been staying with Morgan while her apartment was repaired following a flood and had been subjected to all the films he declared were 'classics'. "And Hotch cleared me to work, so…"

They started to trickle towards the situation room, leaving Spencer bringing up the rear. Which was how he was the only one to see the moment Hotch and Grace spotted one another and the subsequent, silent battle of wills that ensued, until Grace allowed herself to be swept into the situation room, the very picture of innocence.

He looked back just in time to see Hotch roll his eyes and had to turn away to keep from laughing.

 _Man it's weird to see him without a shirt and tie,_ he thought, hurrying after Pearce.

"Hey!" said JJ brightly, spotting their returning agent. Somehow she had found time to tidy her hair since Spencer had left her in the parking lot, about fifteen minutes earlier. "How's the wrist?"

"Itchy and uncooperative," said Grace cheerfully.

"Yeah, casts are no fun," Emily commiserated.

"Are you cleared for work?" the media liaison asked, as they began to take their seats.

"Yep," said Grace.

Hotch, who had come in behind Spencer, disagreed. "Debateable."

For a few, fairly awkward seconds she waited with surprising meekness for him to continue or to make her leave, but he did neither. Instead, he sighed and picked up a file, so Grace did the same, taking a seat beside Emily at the table.

Out of the corner of his eye, Spencer saw Emily mouth 'That was close' to her, but by then he had begun to read his own copy of the file and didn't particularly feel like engaging in banter.

"Alright," said JJ, after a moment. "I got a call about an hour ago – these guys really need our help."

She aimed her pointer at the smart screen, which began playing news footage of what looked like a devastating fire at a movie theatre. Spencer glanced at Grace, whose expression suggested she was rapidly re-evaluating the wisdom of coming back.

"This is news footage from a movie theatre in Royal, Indiana," said JJ, as the short film froze on the screen. "Population two thousand. This happened earlier tonight. Nineteen people were killed."

Around the room, various agents tutted or made noises of dismay.

"And they're sure it's arson?" Morgan checked.

"Yeah. Two days ago the same thing happened at the local recreation centre," said JJ heavily. "Twelve victims, no survivors."

"Oh, I heard about that," said Prentiss, surprised.

Spencer nodded absently, flicking through the initial report. He had heard about it, too. The reporter on the segment had been close to tears.

"Yeah, it was all over the news," said JJ.

Unsurprisingly, given that she had been off for several days, Grace had heard about it too. "Multiple child victims," she recalled grimly.

"Uh, there were some details that didn't make the news," JJ told them. "A week and a half earlier there were some fires at a convenience store, a local restaurant. Luckily, it was after hours, so no one was hurt."

"So, whoever set these went from no victims to thirty-one in less than two weeks," Rossi observed. "That's a hell of an escalation."

Hotch, perched on a chair, nodded almost bitterly.

"Bloody coward," Grace growled, almost under her breath.

Fire cases really weren't good for her.

Prentiss looked up at JJ. "Why didn't they call us in sooner?"

"The local police and fire department knew they were dealing with an arsonist," she replied. "They had no idea he'd become a killer."

"Most arsonists don't," Spencer told them, taking the seat on the other side of Grace. "They just like setting fires. Any deaths that occur are almost always accidental."

"Well, thirty-one victims is not an accident," Morgan remarked.

"The Police Chief knows he made a mistake," said Hotch, in the manner of someone who had just got off the phone with him. "And he learned the hard way that even though not all arsonists are killers, they do have one thing in common. Once they start, they can't stop."

Immediately, the nineties Pringles commercial popped into Spencer's head. _Once you pop, the fun don't stop_ , he thought, and then mentally squashed the jaunty tune before it could get started.

"You know, this isn't all that dissimilar to the pattern we had in the Pine Barrens last year," Grace reflecting, frowning down at the fire reports. "In escalation, at any rate."

"Yeah, except _that_ arsonist was actively trying not to hurt people," Rossi reminded her. "This one is doing the opposite of that."

Grace nodded. "Even so, Royal's tiny, and they're reeling from losing a full one percent of their entire population. Their fire department probably doesn't see much like this. I could give Ash Carter a call, see if she has an insight?"

Spencer looked up, surprised, but not overly opposed to the idea. Ashleigh Carter – an old friend of Grace's whom she had studied with back in the UK – was Chief Fire Investigator in the Pine Barrens, a disparate, wooded community in New Jersey. She had called her old friend and asked her for help when a series of nuisance flags in her area had started raising red flags.*

There were other things he recalled from the Pine Barrens, too, like cars that wouldn't work, butterflies that openly and joyfully defied the laws of physics, and something darker that he was ninety percent sure _wasn't_ a kangaroo with wings glued to its back.** They had spent all night talking, he remembered wistfully, glancing sideways at his friend.

From what Spencer recalled, she was a competent, dedicated officer – and it might be worth having someone who was accustomed to both arson-related forensics and small, close-knit communities look things over.

Apparently, Hotch agreed. "Bring her in, if she's willing," he said unexpectedly. "This one is moving fast and we need as much help on the ground as we can get." He paused as they all got to their feet. "Oh, and Pearce?"

She froze, a deer-in-headlights look on her face.

"I know you have your go bag in there," he said, jabbing his thumb in the direction of the bull pen.

The others shared amused glances. It was good to have her back – but when there was no real risk involved, everyone enjoyed watching a light roasting of a colleague. It was Schadenfreude at its finest.

Pearce stuck out her chin, contriving to look mildly sheepish and distinctly stubborn at the same time. "You said I could come back."

Hotch raised an eyebrow. "On Monday."

"Which is the next working day from today, so you evidently think I'm ready to return to work," she argued. "And we have a case – and this is as bad as they get. And you said yourself you need everyone on this."

Hotch sighed. "Alright, fine," he said, pointing a warning finger at her. "But you stay at the Police Department unless I tell you otherwise."

Grace, trying not to look too pleased with herself, snapped off a salute, to the amusement of her colleagues.

Spencer shook his head, unable to remove the slight smile from his face. He _had_ missed her.

Of course he had.

0o0

 _We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it._

 _Tennessee Williams_

0o0

The team was clustered around the little table on the jet, Garcia's slightly worried face visible on the laptop, files open in front of them.

Grace, who had missed this more than she had thought possible, had chosen to perch on the raised bench opposite the table, next to Emily. There was less chance of her arm getting jostled there – and as prepared as she felt to do the job at hand, she was aware that squeezing in and out of the table seats one handed was a little beyond her at the moment. As it was, she had the file resting on the back of the chair beside her, and was trying not to look as if she was having as much trouble holding it and turning the pages as she presently was.

"Based on the limited population of Royal, the unsub is most likely a local male between the ages of seventeen and thirty," said Reid, coming back from the kitchenette to perch between Grace and Emily. He twisted his file towards him slightly so as not to catch her bandaged arm with it, for which she was grateful.

" _What, arson is a sexist industry?"_ Garcia quipped, from the laptop.

"Ah well, for the most part, yeah," Reid told her. "Only twelve percent of arsonists are female."

"Apparently women just aren't inclined to burn things," Emily remarked.

"The last one was a girl," Grace reminded her, thinking of Faye Dunphy, and her woeful obsession with fireflies*.

"Well, let's go with the numbers," Hotch suggested, from where he was leaning over the chair next to Rossi. "Focus on males."

"Well, we can scratch hero complex off the list," Morgan reflected sourly, from his seat at the table. "He hasn't left anyone to save."

Grace nodded. She had yet to look at the autopsy reports – such as they were. In such a small place, the M.E. was part time – and already swamped from the fire at the rec' centre the week before. "He seems to be going out of his way not to leave survivors," she mused.

"Ye-eah, but we can't rule out firefighters and other first responders," said Emily

" _How's about I do a background check on all local firefighters and EMTs?"_ Garcia proposed.

"And flag anyone with a history of being first on the scene," Hotch told her, by way of agreement.

"Or anyone with a juvenile record that involves vandalism or small, nuisance fires," Rossi added.

" _I will look at everything from firebug to flamethrower,"_ Garcia promised.

"JJ, check out the news footage," Hotch instructed. "I want the word out that we'd like to see any videos or personal photos of the fire. Arsonists like to watch, and if our unsub stuck around, maybe somebody will recognise him."

JJ gave a brisk nod. "On it."

"Locals see anything in their call logs that resembles the unsub's M.O.?" Morgan enquired. "I mean, he may have staged practice runs."

"According to the Fire Chief's report there was nothing similar in the past year," Rossi responded.

"That's interesting," Grace observed. "Something must have triggered this guy fairly recently to go from no victims to well-into double figures this fast."

"Garcia, extend your search state-wide," Hotch told her. "The unsub may have done his practicing far enough away so as not to arouse suspicion."

" _I will cast a wide net, sir,"_ she replied.

Hotch inclined his head. "Thank you."

JJ, reading Morgan's file, shook her head and sighed. "I grew up in a small town. People are going to assume anyone we question is guilty."

"Last thing we want is for this to turn into a witch hunt," Rossi observed.

"That's exactly what this is," Hotch reminded them. "We're just going to have to keep folks from realising it."

Grace, who might ordinarily have a few choice things to say on the subject, merely nodded soberly. This was a special case, after all.

"Garcia, I want you to find out everything you can about the thirty-one victims," said Hotch briskly. "And I don't just mean their paper trail. I need to know everyone related to them, everyone they owed money to, everybody they had an argument with."

" _Sir, if I'm hearing it right, you're saying I'm the witch hunter?"_ Garcia asked, sounding uncomfortable.

Hotch glanced at her. "That's exactly what I'm saying."

"Except here you're doing it to save people from a lingering and gruesome death," Grace told her. "Not to persecute anyone or for personal gain."

" _Doesn't mean I have to like it,"_ Garcia grumbled.

"Pearce, I want you to come to the social hall with JJ and I," said Hotch, to Grace's surprise.

"I thought I was relegated to safe, office settings," she remarked, lifting her cast up.

"You are, but I want you to get a read on people down there, first," he said. "Then you can help Garcia build a profile on the whole town."

"Woo and or yay," she said, with a grimace in Garcia's direction.

Their technical goddess blew her a kiss, much to her amusement.

" _Chief Fire Investigator Carter will meet you guys there,"_ said Garcia. _"Her flight just got into Gary. She's driving over."_

"We'll have her look over the scenes," said Hotch, getting up and heading to a proper seat.

Morgan, still reading the files, couldn't stop himself grinning. From the amused expression Rossi shot her above their friend's head, she wasn't the only one who had noticed.

0o0

The Police Chief was waiting for them outside the Social Hall when they pulled up in their departmental Subaru. He was a weathered, honest looking man in his forties, with short, curling brown hair and a tidy beard. Warm, dark eyes looked out from under a sad brow.

"Chief Carlson?" JJ asked as he reached for her hand to shake. "Agent Jareau – this is Agent Hotchner and Agent Pearce."

"Thank you for coming," he said, shaking their hands in turn. "I know I should have called you in earlier, so… Anything you need – anything at all – you got it."

"Well, what we're gonna need most is your help," Hotch told him. "It's a horrible tragedy and it's gonna take everyone working together to prevent another one."

For a moment the chief looked from one agent to another in unhappy disbelief. "You think he's gonna try to do it again?"

Hotch nodded grimly. "We know he will," he said, as gently as he could. "And with his escalating timeline, it's gonna be soon."

The Chief sighed heavily, readjusting his list of things to worry about, then led them inside.

The Social Hall had the same varnish, polish, cold tea and orange squash smell universal to all community halls. There were a handful of townspeople inside, but they were all closed off; isolating themselves. The living ones, anyway.

Grace caught her breath as they reached the main dance hall. The dead from the latest disaster were laid out in rows on the floor, some in body bags, others in tarps; some just under sheets smeared with blood. The unmistakeable scent of death lingered in the air. What was usually such a vibrant and well-tended space made for a pitiful sight, pressed into use as a temporary mausoleum.

Hotch, aware of Grace's personal history, glanced in her direction. She gave a minute nod. She was okay. She would have to be. These people badly needed them.

"We…" the Chief began, voice a little hoarse. "We – uh – we didn't have enough room for 'em at the hospital," he said. He lowered his gaze to the floor. "Uh, this way."

He led the way between the rows, sadly acknowledging the stares of the odd family member set up on chairs either side of their loved ones, weeping openly into their hands.

Following him, Grace's senses underwent a fresh assault. Under the smell of burnt flesh and necrosis there were other scents: popcorn, perfume, the scent of someone's shampoo. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to block out the screams and the sobbing of the recently deceased. They couldn't make any more sense of this than their surviving loved-ones could. The air was dizzy with their cries. She quickened her pace, feeling claustrophobic and sick.

Their destination was a small office at the end of the hall, where the medical staff appeared to have set up shop – along with quite a few grieving townspeople.

"Doc Rawlings," said the Chief, ushering the agents inside.

"Ah, you're the FBI people," said the doctor. He ran a hand through his grey hair, giving them a grimace. He seemed down to earth and exhausted, like he hadn't slept in days. "I'm glad Chief Carlson called you."

There were no recriminations there. Only a simple statement of relief. Grace approved.

They moved together among the grief-stricken mourners. Out of the corner of her eye, Grace watched Carlson comforting a mother and a crying toddler for a moment; across the room, an elderly man was sitting with his head in his hands. She wasn't sure which was worse – being in here with the grief of the living or being in the main hall with the grief of the dead. She could feel them behind her, like invisible thunderclouds in an otherwise dismal day.

"Yes sir. I'm agent Hotchner, these are Agents Pearce and Jareau," said Hotch, introducing them.

Grace came back to herself in time to shake the man's hand. 'Go with the living', her guv had often said. Sound advice when both sides of the great divide put such demands on the attention.

"That's, uh, Mary-Elise." Doctor Rawlings pointed out an agonised looking woman being comforted by a friend. "She lost her husband. That's Alice Steard with Chief Carlson," he said, pointing her out too. "Both her parents were at the movie theatre. Mike –" he nodded to a distraught looking man who seemed to be staring into space. "His oldest son and his girlfriend were there. So was my nephew," he added helplessly. "Everybody in the room lost somebody."

As she listened to the man, Grace began to understand.

 _He hasn't even been home,_ she realised. _He's been here all night and all day, knee deep in this._ _This is the first time he's even been able to talk to anyone about it – anyone who hasn't lost someone._

"When I first heard about it I just came right here," he told them. "Had my nurses bring equipment, set up triage." He paused, gazing out into the makeshift mausoleum. "Nobody needed it. They were – they were all dead. Every single one of them."

 _This whole town's going to go right off the edge after this,_ she thought.

"I wish I could tell you this is the worst of it," said Hotch, as delicately as he could. "But I can't. When he strikes again he's going to be aiming for even more victims."

The man paled, exhausted and horrified. "My God."

"We need you to send everyone home," Hotch continued. "Large gatherings like this are a bad idea."

"We don't want to give him an easy target," Grace added quietly.

"Right," he said, heading off, but JJ stopped him.

"Doctor Rawlings – when I spoke to the police chief he said that you know everyone in Royal."

"Well, pretty much," he told them, looking old and miserable. "I grew up here, I inherited my father's practice…" He looked out into the hall again. "I delivered eleven of those people in there."

"There's a strong probability that the killer is local," Hotch informed him.

Rawlings just stared at him, the weight of that knowledge falling heavily on him, as they knew it would.

"You think somebody from _Royal_ did this?" He gaped at them in open disbelief.

Hotch nodded. "It's usually the case," he told him.

"We wanna handle this investigation as gently as possible," said JJ. "Without pointing fingers."

"The last thing we want to do is have people panic and jump to the wrong conclusions," Grace added.

"What we're asking you to decide is what's more important," said Hotch, aware that the doctor was following the implications of their conversation. "People's privacy or their safety."

Rawlings took a deep, shaky breath, but nodded.

Grace went with him to help move people out of the building and towards their homes. They were all in shock; numb, or too far over for much to reach them. She watched their faces for any tells, any behaviour that suggested anything unhealthy, but all there was here was grief.

Grief and a hundred tangled lives touched by this fresh tragedy.

She walked the elderly gentleman to the car park and then into the back of a friend's car. No one thought he ought to be driving. Even the streets were quiet. Few people were going about their business as normal today.

The car was still backing out when a non-descript rental pulled up, and a woman with a crooked smile and bright pink hair got out.

For no reason other than her friend's solid presence, Grace felt bolstered.

"Hey, Miss Ashleigh," she said, feeling some of the weight she had been carrying for the last few weeks lift from her shoulders.

"Hey, Kid Vicious," Ash replied, managing to envelope her in a tight hug without disturbing her cast. "I missed your face."

"I missed yours, too," she said, and swallowed, feeling oddly fragile.

"Like the hair."

Grace laughed. "Like yours, too. The good people of New Jersey coping okay with the full bubblegum treatment?"

Ash shrugged lightly. "They ain't saying anythin' to my face. And after last summer I don't give a rat's ass what they think of it." She gave Grace a once over. "You good?"

It was Grace's turn to shrug, though she threw in a smile for good measure. She didn't entirely trust herself to speak.

"Hmm, that's what I thought," Ash grumbled. "Saw it on the news."

Grace looked away and nodded. Most of her old friends had, and had checked in electronically in the days after the team had flown back from Georgia.

When she looked back, Ash was giving her a much gentler smile. "Alright, Kid Vicious, we can Not Talk about it if that's whatchya need." She cast her gaze around and rubbed her hands together. "Now, where's the hot one?"

0o0

The pavement outside the movie theatre had become home to an enormous shrine of photos, flowers, candles, stuffed animals, messages to the deceased. Someone had fastened a modest America flag to the railings, which flapped disconsolately in the breeze. People kept coming and adding to it.

Soon, Derek felt, it would stretch almost the length of the whole block.

"Most the victims died of smoke inhalation, thank God," said Fire Captain Danny Wales, leading Derek and Prentiss around the scene. He sounded hollow and angry, and Derek didn't blame him. "A few of them were trampled. My cousin Gary and his wife, Linda…"

Prentiss paused and shot a look of concern at Derek over her shoulder. He shook his head. This was too close to all of these people.

"If you need some time," she said, but Wales ignored her.

"We're talkin' gasoline and matches," he continued, leading them to the fire escape – which had been where the majority of people had died. "This was the point of origin."

Derek looked around. Smoke and soot stained the top of the walls of the narrow, twisting passage and there were burn marks around the door. Other stains were disturbingly human, where hair or handprints had been recorded in soot-filled smoke.

"The second one was in the lobby?" Prentiss asked.

"This one burned the longest," Wales told them hopelessly. "Slower, too. Less oxygen, less fuel." He drifted off for a moment, probably imagining his cousins' last, agonising moments. "He used a lot more gas in the lobby. Place went up like a haystack."

 _So he wanted them in here,_ Derek thought, eyes lingering on the smoke stains.

"Uh, what about the sprinklers?" Prentiss asked.

"Bastard turned off the main waterline," said the fire captain, walking away.

They waited for him to get out of earshot before continuing.

"You know, the unsub could've set this fire first," Derek mused aloud. "Lobby fire burned faster and harder, forcing the victims out this way – where he'd already blocked the exit."

"And where the smoke from the more slowly burning fire had already built up," Prentiss agreed.

They looked up and down the little right angled corridor. He'd built a trap for these people. Deliberately.

"And whoever did do this knew that even if the fire department got here on time to stop the fires…" he paused and matched his hand against a handprint that started at head height and slid down the wall. "They still wouldn't have been able to save them."

0o0

Dave picked his way through the wreckage in what used to be the lobby of the movie theatre. Fire Chief Tom Schultz, an older gentleman who was probably nearing retirement age, was theoretically giving him a tour, along with a young EMT, Tina Wheeler. They were both tired and disillusioned, and Dave wondered whether this arsonist would be what pushed them both out of their chosen professions.

"Me and Danny are both volunteers," Schultz told him. "The whole company is. Got about twenty firefighters, plus our own ladder, truck and pumpers."

"And EMT runs a two person crew, twenty-four seven," said Wheeler, trailing after the two men and trying not to look too hard at the mess someone had made of her home town.

"We managed to get it out pretty fast," Schultz reflected, looking around.

"Not fast enough," Tina reflected darkly. "All those people…" she shook her head. "Who would have so much hate?"

"Someone whose rage has been building for years," Dave told her.

"But what he did – I…" she shook her head again, unable to comprehend the unfeeling cruelty of it.

"The unsub knew exactly what he was doing," Dave explained. "He's been practicing for a long time. Nuisance fires, vandalism. He may have even burned himself."

"Well, that sounds like every teenage boy who's ever grown up in Royal," Tina scoffed. "I don't know if you noticed, but there's really not a lot to do here."

"You have our reports." Said Schultz a little stiffly. "All the records are in there."

Dave nodded, hearing the unspoken question 'so why do you need us here?'. "Maybe so," he said. "But we all know there are times when things… don't get reported. Times when you're… just trying to protect someone. You know? Just trying to, um… make the situation go away."

Schultz looked around the devastated cinema, looking pretty devastated himself.

"We're just tryin' to help people out," he said, a touch defensively. "Sometimes the best way to do that is to forget that it ever happened."

"We're gonna need to know about those times," Dave prompted, as delicately as he could.

Schultz nodded and led the way back out of the building.

He and Tina left him by the kerb, wanting to get back to their normal lives – insofar as that was possible at a time like this.

At about the same time as Derek and Emily rounded the corner of the building, two familiar shapes ducked under the shape.

Pearce still had that tired, haunted look Dave associated with the victims of trauma, and the air of stubborn disaffectedness he recognised in all his fellow agents when their lives had come crashing down. She had been putting on a good show of okayness since walking into the BAU the evening before, but even so, she seemed less tense with her old friend beside her.

Chief Fire Investigator Ash Carter looked a little odd wearing a smart suit rather than her navy uniform, but the pink hair that fell around her shoulders and the cagey, professionally annoyed expression that had come over her face as she surveyed the remains of the movie theatre were very familiar.

Next to him, Morgan straightened up and minutely puffed out his chest.

"How you doin'?" Morgan murmured, under his breath.

Dave, sharing a look with Prentiss, was hard pressed not to laugh, despite the appalling circumstances.

"Chief Carter," he greeted, shaking her head. "Glad you could come out and give us a hand with this one."

"Wouldn'ta missed it," she said, shaking hands with Prentiss, too. "Least I could do, after what you folks did."

"Nah, it's all part of the service," Morgan assured her, oozing charm.

Pearce hid a smile.

"Oh, I'm not sure I could say that," Carter replied, running her eyes appreciatively over him.

Morgan grinned.

"I hate to break this up," said Prentiss, with some amusement, "but did you get anything from the files Garcia sent you?"

Not remotely embarrassed, Carter shifted immediately into a more professional gear. "It all matches what the locals say in terms of ignition and burn pattern," she said. "Though I wouldn't mind a closer look at the scenes."

"Be our guest," said Dave, gesturing at the building behind him.

"You're headin' back to the Command Centre, right?" she said, looking at Pearce, who didn't respond.

She was starting at the pavement shrine, a faraway and not altogether comfortable expression on her face. Carter clicked her fingers at her friend.

"Earth to Agent Pearce."

"Sorry," she said, with a start. "Yes, heading back to PD. Yes."

Carter nodded slowly, watching her with slightly narrowed eyes.

"I might check in with the locals, first," she said, after a moment. "If you all could introduce me. Might help smooth over any squashed toes, that kinda thing."

Rossi nodded and led her towards where Schultz and Wales were briefing their men, shooting Prentiss a look which told her to make sure she and Morgan kept an eye on Pearce.

0o0

* See Moments of Grace – Season Four, Act One: Before I Sleep, chapters 10 – 20.

** See chapters 14 – 17 of the above.


	17. Warzone

**Essential listening: The Fire, by Rag'n'Bone Man**

 **0o0**

The Police Department in Royal was a one storey structure with only seven full-time officers. A couple of volunteers had been drafted in to help with crowd control and general keeping of the peace, given the events of the past few days, and all the part-time officers were pulling full shifts with no extra pay. Even so, there weren't many of them – and it showed.

It was so small a department that the only place they could find that was private enough for the BAU to use as a Command Centre was the staffroom. With Chief Carlson's blessing they had commandeered the lunch table and taken down the pictures of sports teams and charity events that had hung on the wall. There were different images there now. Thirty-one photographs; thirty-one individual tragedies stared down at the team as they worked.

Slowly, because of her cast, Grace was adding names to the pictures, mutely wondering what their lives would have been if they hadn't been so brutally cut short.

JJ, Hotch and Reid were gathered around the table – at which there were only just enough chairs to go around already. Gods only knew what they would do when the others got in. Ash had joined them from her examination of the cinema and was perched on the kitchen counter across the room, reviewing the files they already had.

"I have been through every piece of footage that I could find," said JJ, with an air of defeat. "No one sticks out at the fires, no one appears to be inappropriately voyeuristic, no one with bandages…"

"Garcia?" Hotch asked.

" _Yeah. No firebug firefighter, no flammable juvee records,"_ she reported, via video link. _"However, of the a hundred and twenty eight instances of petty larceny and vandalism in the last year there are a few names that sorta stick out…"_ She made a few keystrokes. _"So, I'm emailing you those photos. I also have a pattern of small gasoline fires about three hundred miles away – a town called Franklin. I got a… uh trashcan fire, a Christmas tree and an abandoned shed. I've sent you that file."_

"Sounds like someone just starting out," Grace reflected, thinking again of Faye Dunphy.

"Given the five-hundred mile search radius there's bound to be a certain percentage of nuisance fires," JJ reasoned. Encouraged by Hotch's nod of agreement, she went on, "We can't necessarily attribute that to our unsub."

"Yeah," Ash agreed, hardly looking up. "People light things on fire all over the place – and three hundred miles is pretty far from here."

"That's true," said Reid, who had been frowning at the forensic reports over Ash's shoulder. "But only 7% of arsonists used wooden matches with a gasoline accelerant. Our unsub and this guy."

Ash nodded, "Uh huh, this creeper is pretty old school."

Reid nodded in the direction of the laptop. "Nice work, Garcia."

She preened, obviously pleased.

"What about our victims?" Hotch asked, and her face fell.

" _Hah. Well, given that I've had less than eight hours, I can't really –"_

"I appreciate the time constraint. What've you found?" Hotch interrupted briskly.

" _Uh… uh – a mixture,"_ she said, sounding flummoxed. _"Of – of all ages and genders. Mostly local, a cousin visiting from a nearby town."_

"Is there any cross-over between the victims in the two towns, Garcia?" Reid asked, interested.

" _Okay,"_ said Garcia, evidently frustrated with them. She got up and retrieved some paper files from behind her desk.

Grace raised an eyebrow. This one must be getting to her if she'd resorted to printing stuff out.

" _It's a little teeny tiny town, there's nothing_ but _cross-over."_ She returned to her seat, bringing some of the papers with her. _"Okay, um – Alex Nagel. He was killed in the rec' centre. Now, not only was Nagel an upstanding member of the local church, he also owned quite a bit of real estate in Royal, including the movie theatre. Wendy Kennedy,"_ she continued, as the agents in royal looked for her picture on the wall. _"Was killed at the movie theatre. She was a single mom, worked a double shift at the local discount store – and she still managed to find time to volunteer at – the rec' centre. I also have a third grade teacher, third cousins and at least three potential affairs – uh –"_

"You're going to have to start weeding out some of these, Garcia," Hotch interrupted, rubbing his forehead. "Third cousins and religious affiliations are probably not gonna help us. We need to know who had enemies, who had secrets. Who was a target."

" _Oh, with all due respect, sir, my brain muscles are comfortable with being intuitive with information, not people,"_ Garcia protested. _"Looking at people like that is not in my job description. I'm not a profiler."_

She stopped talking, probably because Hotch's current expression was not to be trifled with.

Grace didn't blame him; she'd paced through the social hall with its sad lines of corpses, too. But she did feel for Garcia. This wasn't her remit, and her personality and general faith in the world would make the task all the harder.

"Well, you're gonna have to be," he told her, in a tone that belied no sympathy at all. "We don't have much time."

Garcia stared at him, looking massively out of her depth.

"I'll give you a hand," said Grace, taking pity on her friend. "I'm relegated to Command, anyway."

"Good," said Hotch, with a glance at Reid and JJ. "You two look into the nuisance fires. Chief – give them a hand."

"Yes sir," said Ash, with a twist to her mouth that suggested she was amused to have been so completely absorbed into the team.

Hotch stalked out without a backward glance. He had a memorial to attend.

JJ and Reid shared a look. "Talk to us about accelerants," said the media liaison, pulling up a chair for Ash.

"Okay," said Grace, turning the laptop so she could see better and picking up her pen. "Tell me what you've got. Let's start with those potential affairs. Nothing creates animosity faster than adulterous sex."

0o0

Rossi, Morgan and Prentiss were slowly pacing around the memorial at the Royal Cornerstone Church. It was a sad affair, but well-attended. There were at least a hundred people in attendance; maybe more. The altar at the front of the church was adorned with flowers and photographs.

The mood of the town was fairly easy to read: sombre and uneasy.

Aaron glanced at Morgan. The mood of his agents was fairly uneasy, too. Chief Carter's presence – while entirely welcome – was a strong reminder of the last time they had attended a community meeting with an arsonist on the prowl. All four of them had checked that the doors were unlocked at least twice – though Dave had been less obvious about it than the others. Based on the profile it was unlikely in the extreme that the unsub would attack this function – but it was definitely better to be safe than sorry.

Aaron had positioned himself at the back of the room, where he could take an overview of the room – and keep an inconspicuous eye on the doors while his team worked the crowd. They were patrolling the edges of the pews now, trying not to disturb anyone, but identifying anyone Garcia's vandalism charges had flagged up as the preacher intoned the words of the service.

"Thought you said large gatherings aren't a good idea," said Doctor Rawlings in an undertone to Aaron.

He had given up his seat to a woman with crutches and had joined the agent in his low-key surveillance of the room.

"This service, I mean –" the doctor continued, but Aaron interrupted.

"Is not a target," he whispered. "The unsub wouldn't wanna interrupt the grief he created." He paused, sweeping his eyes over the backs of the heads of Royal's shell-shocked residents. "But he may want to watch it. We're looking for inappropriate behaviour for the situation," he explained. "Too much emotion; too little emotion. Someone who keeps to himself, watching others' reactions. Someone who insinuates himself too closely into someone else's grief. We're focussing on known offenders with a propensity for arson."

The team had the files Garcia sent over on their phones, along with summaries of fire or vandalism related offences; some weren't proved – some weren't provable. All they had were suspicions, intangible as smoke.

Aaron's phone buzzed as the sound of sirens fill the air and everyone turns in their seats, frightened. He tensed, ready for trouble.

"Yeah, JJ?" he said softly.

"People, please – calm down," urged the preacher, as the frightened mutterings of the people in the pews went up a notch. "I'm sure it's nothing."

He didn't sound certain, however, and no one seemed to listen. The parishioners began talking fearfully amongst themselves in louder voices.

Aaron hung up, scowling. "He's not here," he whispered to Doctor Rawlings – and Dave, who had sidled over.

He watched as Dave took in his expression. "You're sure?"

Aaron nodded, feeling the stirrings of panic. Had they misjudged the profile already?

0o0

 _Pop's Place_ had been a thriving bar on Alger Street. Now it was a smoking hulk.

Ash Carter, given her credentials, had already been allowed on scene, and was pacing around the safer portions of the building with the taciturn fire captain, glaring hawkishly at every detail. Most of the fire was out, now – but the rest of the structure wasn't safe to enter yet, and the voluntary fire crew was still working to reduce some of the more volatile beams to little more than a smoulder.

The air was thick with soot and smoke, and inevitably there were gawkers on every corner. Ash ignored them. She was used to this. It was abundantly clear that the Royal volunteers were not.

She glanced up as one of the FBI Subarus pulled up at the kerb. Agents Hotchner and Prentiss got out, looking distressed – or, at least, distressed for them. An aging gentleman in a suit got out of the back and walked to the nearby ambulance with the practiced haste of the medical practitioner. She guessed this was Doctor Rawlings, whom Grace had mentioned.

"This doesn't make sense, he should have been at the memorial," Hotchner complained, surveying the bar.

Prentiss looked similarly out of sorts. "He shouldn't have been able to resist the damage he had done."

They had been wrong, Ash guessed, which meant that for the moment, the unsub was using a different playbook to them. It had obviously knocked them off their game, however momentarily. They'd figure it out.

A second SUV pulled up, disgorging Rossi and the delectable Derek Morgan, who both grimaced at the bar like it had personally offended them.

Ash lifted a hand in greeting and they came over to where she and Captain Danny Wales were both standing, staring up at the building, assessing the structure.

"Captain – hey, Captain?" said Derek, with a nod of acknowledgement to Ash. This was Wales' turf, not hers, and she wasn't offended. "Can we get a word?"

"Started in the kitchen," he said, barely glancing at them. His words were laced with a sort of hopeless exhaustion that Ash had seen in other officers who had lost people. He had had family at the movie theatre, she recalled. She wondered if he had slept at all. "Looks like he came round to the back and tossed a cocktail through the window."

"Gasoline in the cocktail and matches in the alley, same as before," said Ash, nodding at Wales' assessment. "Looks like a melted bourbon bottle on the floor, but we'll need more time on that. I mean, it _is_ a bar. Had it sent to forensics."

"Different delivery system, though," Rossi observed. "That's a big deviance from his MO."

"But perfect for this location," Morgan qualified.

Ash frowned. "So – and correct me if I'm wrong – y'all are the profilers, not me, but does that mean he's more invested in makin' sure this fire went off perfect than stickin' to the methods he's comfortable with?"

"Could be," Rossi nodded. "Could be this one had added personal significance to him."

"I don't know, though," said Derek thoughtfully. "Space this small, he shouldn't have been able to pour the gasoline without bein' seen." He turned to Wales. "Nobody saw a thing?"

Wales shook his head. "Witnesses say they heard an explosion."

"Well, I guarantee you he stuck around to watch," the agent said, shooting a low look at the line of gawkers across the street.

Ash, on the other hand, was watching Wales' fatigued expression. "Hey, Cap'. If the building's safe, I wouldn't mind doing a walk through with these agents."

He shrugged, manifesting disaffection. "Whatever."

She put up her hands. "Hey man, it's your turf – I don't wanna step on your toes."

He looked up at her and some of his prickliness dissolved. Here, they were just firefighters; it was a hell of a leveller. "No, I know. It's just – this is my town, you know?"

"I know," said Ash, with feeling. "I had the same thing goin' down a year back and these folks helped me set it to rights."

He raised a weary eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Wales appeared to come to a decision. "Alright. She's all yours," he said, calling the hoses back. "I'm gonna have my guys take a break. Most of 'em haven't slept for days."

"They'll be no use to anyone if they get fatigue," Ash said by way of agreement – with a mildly pointed look at the Captain himself. He gave her a sad, wry smile and moved away. She turned to the agents. "You all follow behind me and you don't touch anythin' okay?" she instructed sternly.

"Yes ma'am," Morgan, with just enough of a rumble to his voice to bring a smile to her lips.

Not that she minded, but there was a time and a place. She rolled her eyes. "Whatever. I don't wanna be answerin' to Grace when they're scrapin' you up off the floor. That lady's scary when she's pissed."

 _Probably scarier than you can even imagine,_ she thought, leading them to the front door. _I wonder if she'll ever tell any of them…_

"Bar matches his previous locations," Derek commented as they walked up the front steps. "'Nother local hotspot."

"Only five victims this time," Rossi remarked. "Why lower the body count?"

She was marvelling at how normal they were making this weird, creepy conversation sound when she spotted it and cursed under her breath. "I think we found why nobody got out." She pointed out the heavy duty chains still hanging from the metal frame that used to be the door. "Sick son of a bitch."

"That's somethin' else that's different," Morgan reflected, raising one of his perfect eyebrows.

"Hey," Ash called to Wales, who was stowing equipment by the appliance. She motioned towards the chain. "This the same front and back?"

He followed her gaze and nodded wearily.

"Asshole," Ash tutted. _This bastard is really beginning to tick me off_ , she added privately.

"He really wanted to make sure nobody got out this time," said Derek. There was a darkness in his voice that suggested anger. Ash didn't blame him.

Rossi frowned, similarly discomposed. "But why bother? No one made it out of the other ones."

"Maybe he knew the fire department would show up sooner," Morgan suggested.

"Yeah, they'll be faster now," said Ash sadly, watching the volunteer officers out of the corner of her eye. "And it'll be killin' every one of them that they couldn't save these people. You heard what Wales said – this is their town and they feel like they can't protect it."

"So, what's different about this fire than the others?" Rossi asked.

"Could be a copycat," said Derek. "Seein' the devastation the other guy is creatin' and wantin' in on the party."

"Don't say that too loud," Ash advised, privately wondering how many of these bastards there were out there. "These people are edgy enough as it is." She looked around. "It's different here than the Barrens. Everybody knows everybody." She shook her head. "Feels like a warzone."

0o0

Aaron was standing with Prentiss, watching the crowd. They had been wrong about the profile, that much was obvious. It galled him. They might have been able to save the people in the bar. He pushed the feeling away. For the sake of Royal they had to get this thing back on track.

Chief Carlson was standing a few feet away, watching the onlookers, something close to melancholy in his eyes.

"You know," he said bitterly, out of nowhere. "My father was chief here for over thirty years. Last two weeks I lost more folks'n he did his whole career."

 _This must be killing him,_ Aaron thought.

"Agent Prentiss?" someone called from the tape-line.

"Sorry," she said to Carlson, and went over to meet them.

"Chief, what do we know?" Aaron asked. They needed to get things moving again – and the Chief badly needed something else to focus on.

"Four dead," he replied heavily, turning to engage with him. "Bartender – Nancy – is still hangin' on."

"How bad is she?" Aaron asked, recognising the unhopeful look on the man's face.

"Pretty bad," Carlson told him. "She was unconscious when they took 'er."

"If we get a chance, we need to talk to her," Aaron said, hoping she lived long enough – and that her vocal chords hadn't been damaged.

Both men turned in surprise as a woman struggled around the edge of the fire engine behind them, Fire Chief Tom Schultz hanging onto one arm, trying to pull her back. Aaron recognised her at once from the photos of first responders Pearce had tacked to the wall in the staffroom they were presently referring to as 'Command'.

"Let me go, Tom! I heard it on the radio! I need to –"

"God – I'm sorry, Tina!" Schultz exclaimed, managing to pull his friend to a standstill and hold her against the truck so she couldn't get any nearer to the wreckage of the bar.

"But I just – I just talked to him, Tom! He said – he said he was coming home," she cried, and the word turned into a wail, her body almost doubling up with the agony of loss.

"Tina's fiancé, Jason, owned the bar," Carlson explained, as the two men observed the drama playing out behind them – the same one that had been playing out all over town for the past two weeks, again and again. "He was inside when it all happened."

Tina fell to her knees, sobbing, Schultz still holding onto her, trying to keep her upright.

"When's it gonna stop?" Carlson asked of the universe at large, and walked dejectedly away.

He was replaced by Morgan, Dave and Ashleigh Carter, who emerged from the gutted building.

"Anything?" Aaron asked, not hoping for much.

"We got a completely different MO," said Morgan.

 _Interesting_.

"Assuming it's not a copycat, we know the unsub wasn't at the funeral," Rossi observed. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Someone in that bar was more important to him than anything else."

 _Then we have a job to do._

He gave a brisk nod. "Morgan, call Garcia. Tell her we need to know everything there is to know about these five victims – and we need to know it now," Aaron ordered. "I'll go tell Chief Carlson we wanna talk to his officers."

0o0

Grace carried her tea across the little kitchen in the staffroom and back to the 'Command Centre', which was a journey of about eight feet in all. She had half an eye on the tired, emotionally drained officers in the station proper beyond the windows, all still reeling from the most recent two fires.

Garcia was in very bad mood, having to get up close and personal with the low-level horror of how completely ordinary people managed to fuck one another up and had departed to the sit room in Quantico for another whiteboard because she had run out of space on the walls of her lair. Grace had taken the opportunity to grab a few moments of caffeine filled respite – which took her longer now one arm was in a cast and sling.

Leaving the tea on the desk, slowly she walked around the room, taking in the gallery of the dead she had created. They had decided early on that both of them should annotate the pictures with post-it notes and strings linking the myriad little dramas they dug out of the town's records and communications, both in Quantico and Royal, Indiana, in case anything new that came in stirred anything for the team or their beleaguered technical analyst.

Absently, she ran her hand through her hair, still unaccustomed to its greatly shortened length, reflecting that everything they had uncovered resembled the kind of shrine of semi-useless personal knowledge you might find in the back bedroom of a conspiracy theorist who had gone completely off the rails.

The video link was still open on the laptop on the table, so when Garcia stomped grumpily back into the room and answered the phone, Grace could hear every word.

" _Hello?"_

Grace glanced at the screen, expecting Garcia to be talking to her, but given that she was glaring at the far wall, she returned her attention to the pictures of Royal's recently deceased. Though she couldn't hear the other part of the conversation, she surmised from Garcia's next words that it was Morgan.

" _Fair warning, cupcake,"_ the technical goddess snapped. _"Much as I love you and our witty banter, I am all out of witty and banter and – and struggling with love!"_

There was a pause while Morgan replied; Grace reclaimed her tea, feeling philosophical.

" _I am standing at the crossroads of thirty-one lives and what I see is a train wreck!"_ Garcia exclaimed, miserable and annoyed. _"You want a little tour? This is what I mean, here we go –"_

Grace watched her pace into view near the back of her office and point out a photo, though Morgan couldn't see it.

" _Flip Phillips. He beat his wife. It went on for_ years _, although you wouldn't know it if you looked at the police reports, because that's one of the perks of being_ the mayor _!"_ Garcia crossed the screen again. _"David Alexander. He sued his boss for five million dollars over something_ totally _lame – and what makes it even more rotten is that he was sleeping with the boss's daughter. And then there is…"_

She span around, trying to pick out a particular photo.

" _Where is she? Oh. One of the town council women. Now, she had a permanently ill husband and also four boyfriends under the age of twenty!"_

The angry analyst stood in the middle for a moment, looking forlorn.

" _I wanna believe that the world is teeming with awesome people, but all of this is giving me great pause."_ Her shoulders slumped. _"I wanna go back to cyberspace."_

Grace fiddled with her pen, wishing she could sweep into Garcia's office and give her friend a hug.

Elsewhere in Royal Morgan said something – evidently not good news, because Garcia slumped even further and returned unhappily to the desk, sending a forlorn look at Grace.

" _Okay, just, um… please tell me they're still alive."_

Grace dropped her gaze to the cast on her wrist, guessing the probable result of that inquiry even without seeing her friend's expression.

"'Kay. I'll let you know," said Garcia, hung up, and then collapsed onto her arms.

" _God I hate this,"_ she said, her voice muffled by her forearms. _"I don't know how you guys do this every day."_

"It takes a toll," Grace admitted.

" _But everybody sucks, or dies, or makes a horrible mess of their lives – or all three!"_

Grace nodded. "They do. But then, even screwed up people deserve saving, most of the time. And then you get good people who don't screw up, and who do survive – and survive because of what we do. Like Odette Moss, or all those people in the pictures Gideon used to have in his office. Or kids like Kerry and Milo," she added, thinking of Georgia. "Doing what you're doing helps us give people back a future that's being violently stolen from them."

Her friend emerged from her slump, looking more stricken than before. _"Oh God,"_ she said. _"Here I am, complaining about my brain muscles when you only just got rescued from the clutches of –"_ She stopped, for which Grace was grateful. _"Oh my god, you were just –"_

Between Hotch and the psychiatrist, she was sick of talking about it. And thinking about it – which was why she had pressed so hard to get back to work. There was too much time to think when she was on her own. At least here she could have a break from it, however dark a break that might turn out to be.

" _I'm being so selfish! I – I'm –"_

"Garcia."

" _I ought to know better, because you guys are always talking about how trauma can effect a person and –"_

 _When do you even take a breath?_ Grace wondered, as the technical goddess had a mild empathic meltdown on the far side of the video link.

"Garcia…"

" _And I'm just flapping around here, when you must be going through –"_

Her friend was under a lot of strain, but there was only so much of this Grace could take.

"Penelope!" The sharpness of her tone brought Garcia to a halt, which was something of a relief. "I'm okay – really."

" _Sorry."_

"It's cool, Supergirl. You're out of your comfort zone, I get it."

" _I – uh…"_

"Take a couple of deep breaths. Reboot."

She did so, and seemed to calm down a little.

"You want to know how I get through it?" Grace asked, as she collected herself a little.

Garcia nodded, looking both embarrassed and vulnerable.

"We save people," she said simply. "We stop the bad things happening. We face down the monsters, so no one else has to. And it's hard, and it can be horrible, and sometimes in the field every member of our team will get their heads stuck in a tunnel of grimness from which it feels like there will be no escape. And do you know what we do when that happens?"

" _What?"_ asked Garcia, with a mixture of curiosity and hope that there might be something that could ease her present torment.

Grace smiled. "We call you, pickle. And you save our bacon every single time. Because you're a goddess in human form."

The other woman giggled wetly, then pulled herself together.

" _I always knew you were the perceptive one of the bunch."_

Grace laughed. "That's better. That's the daft, brilliant woman I know and love."

Garcia rolled her eyes, though she was obviously pleased with the assessment. _"Sorry,"_ she said again. _"You shouldn't be the one having to deal with me in the midst of a profiling brain crash. Particularly, given –"_

Grace gave her a rueful smile and she faltered again.

"Don't be daft, crazy lady. There's nowhere I'd rather be."

As gently as she could, Grace steered her back to the task at hand, and was mildly surprised to discover that this was entirely true.

0o0

"All of the first four fires – the convenience store, the restaurant, the rec' centre and the movie theatre, are indicative of a revenge arsonist," Doctor Reid explained. "That's someone who is seeking retaliation for an injustice – whether real or imagined."

All the local law enforcement they could find had been rounded up for the profile, along with the most senior members of the volunteer fire service and the EMT who hadn't just lost their partner. They were watching the BAU team with a mixture of exhaustion, resignation, personal grievance, or desperate, dangerous hope.

She knew some of what they were feeling of course, from when she had called the team in to help out back home, but it was both fascinating and surreal to see it from the outside, as an external consultant. The town was working hard not to reject any outside help, but given the body count and the rate at which this guy was burning their entire town down, things were pretty tense.

"Revenge arsonists often target group headquarters," said Prentiss, "such as churches or government buildings."

"That this arsonist chose specific community hotspots suggests that his rage is directed specifically at this community," Grace expanded, sounding confident and knowledgeable, and not at all like she had been tortured overnight by a maniac in a barn not three weeks earlier. Ash could see the edges where it showed – and doubtless, so could every one of the team of profilers – but it was unlikely the locals could.

 _Consummate performer_ , Ash thought, watching her. _So used to pretending she's normal that she can wear it like a skin._

"These may be places at which he feels he was wronged in the past, or places where the people he feels wronged him particularly frequent or enjoy," the bruised, stubborn witch continued.

"These locations also serve a secondary purpose," Hotchner added. "This unsub has chosen local gathering places with large numbers of potential victims in them. It's clear to us that he's chosen to target this community as a whole."

Rossi nodded. "This tells us the unsub is a local. Someone who lives or grew up in Royal."

"But he feels like an outsider," said Derek, perched on a desk near the front, looking distractingly good in his leather jacket. "As if this community has wronged him in some way. These fires are his way of striking back, trying to draw attention to himself."

"These fires not only killed innocent people, they also gave the unsub a sense of power over the community," Prentiss went on.

A few people muttered. Some of behavioural science sounded so obvious – but the trick, as far as Ash could tell, was working out where the obvious became intangible.

"Power is something he desperately wants," Grace stated. "He's angry, and he feels powerless – something in Royal has made him feel that way, whether intentionally or not. He's trying to take back control, one fire at a time."

"But somehow, these fires were lacking," Rossi said. "He didn't exact the correct amount of punishment, or exact enough attention."

"Or, they didn't attract the attention of the right person," Derek added.

"So, with the bar fire he didn't increase the number of victims," Reid reminded them. "He reduced them."

"That's why the third fire is key," Hotchner commented. "He's not striking out at the community as a whole anymore, he's striking out at one or more individuals."

"You're _sure_ it's the same guy?" Captain Wales asked, with narrowed eyes.

Everyone looked at Reid, who replied, "The odds of another arsonist in a town this small are almost negligible."

"That's why we need to concentrate on these victims. These five will hold the key," Hotchner predicted.

"So, all we gotta do is just figure out who woulda wanted to hurt 'em?" the police chief asked, a glimmer of hope in his voice that it might be reasonably straightforward.

Grace grimaced. "Yes and no."

"It may not be that simple," said Rossi, picking up from her comment.

"This type of rage tends to stem from things that people keep buried," Derek told Carlson. "Things they just don't talk about."

"Which is why we're going to have to dig deeply."

Ash nodded to herself. There had been a note of warning in Hotchner's tone when he spoke, which didn't go unnoticed around the small, worried room.

"And we need to work quickly. Fire for this guy is an addiction, as well as a means to an end," Grace remarked. "We don't have time to be as gentle as we'd like."

Carlson assessed the agents' serious expressions. "Understood."

Ash sighed as everyone began to get to their feet and start milling around, ready to be coordinated.

 _Whatever these guys are expectin', it ain't going to be pretty._


	18. Prodigal Son

**Essential listening: Was it a Dream? by 30 Seconds to Mars**

 **0o0**

Dave followed Aaron through the bright, airy corridors of Royal's miniscule hospital, wondering just what it was that drove his friend to always take the burn unit calls.

As far as he could remember, he had never had a past traumatic experience with fire – nor had anyone in the man's family. But every time the team encountered a fire case, there he was, quietly arranging things so that he was the one to attend the bedside of yet another dying burns victim.

Perhaps it was to spare the rest of the team from the strain of speaking with someone who no one could save (that kind of thing could do a real number on even a seasoned agent) – or maybe he did it to ensure that no matter how distressing the questions they had to ask were, the interviewee was afforded some dignity and solace.

Dave didn't know. What he _did_ know was that he was going to damn well make sure he didn't have to face it alone.

They caught up with Doctor Rawlings in the main ward, where he immediately excused himself from the patient and nurse he had been speaking gently with to meet them. He didn't have to say anything; he knew why they were here. Dave surveyed the man out of the corner of his eye. He seemed exhausted, rung out and angry, but more settled, somehow.

Perhaps, even if he knew better than anyone Nancy wasn't going to make it, at least he could make her more comfortable. As dire as her situation was – and watching over someone you've known their whole life as they die is no picnic – at least this was something the doctor knew how to do.

He gestured towards a door at the end of the corridor where the specialist wards – such as they were, like everything else in Royal, the hospital was on the small side – were located.

"How is she?" Aaron asked, as they walked.

Rawlings grimaced. "We couldn't even send her to the Burn Unit in Gary, it wouldn'ta mattered."

"We'll be brief," Aaron promised.

They let themselves into the small, white room that was stuffed full of machines. Nancy, who had been a young, beautiful woman in the prime of life, was little more than a humanoid mess of blood and burns, looking particularly small and broken against the stark, white sheets. Some of the blood and plasma from her wounds was already beginning to stain the bedding and the bandages she was wrapped in, though Dave knew they would be keeping things as clean as they could, in case by some miracle that was enough to stop her body rapidly cascading through the layers of shock towards death.

"Nancy," said Doctor Rawlings gently.

She moaned lightly and opened her one remaining eye.

"The FBI is here," he told her.

"Nancy," said Hotch in a soft voice. "Can you tell us what happened?"

She took a soft, broken breath of air. "There was a crash," she croaked. "Then everything exploded."

"Cocktail," Dave murmured in his friend's ear.

"What happened before that?" Aaron asked. "Was there anything unusual, or out of the ordinary?"

Nancy thought about it, the effort of engaging with them making her tremble audibly.

"Anyone come in – or leave?" Dave asked.

"Just Jason," she said, at length.

"Jason, the owner?" Aaron prompted.

"He – he came for the money, like always," she said, with a rattling breath. The pace of the heart monitor quickened. "He's dead, isn't he?"

Dave kept his expression blank, not knowing whether the doctors had told her the truth or not. His heart went out to this broken woman, who had been burnt to a crisp by some asshole with a grudge, and still seemed fierce. She certainly seemed to understand she was not long for this world, but she also desperately wanted to help. There was anger there, too, amongst the pain. She was bitterly angry – for herself and her friends, and terribly sad.

But while she was still here, however tenuous her grasp on the world was, she wanted to make her last act in it mean something. He had a great deal of respect for someone who responded to a situation as awful as hers was like that.

 _We'll make it count,_ thought Dave fiercely. _We'll get this bastard. For you – and for everyone in Royal whose lives he has destroyed._

"Nancy, what about customers?" Aaron asked, bringing her focus back to something that would give them information – and calm her down. "Was there anyone there who seemed anxious or upset?"

She moaned again, from the pain – and, Dave thought, from not wanting to let them down.

"He would have kept to himself," Dave added softly, trying to jog her memory. "Sat in the seats away from the other customers."

She was breathing harder, and Dave thought she might be remembering; he glanced at Doctor Rawlings, who was watching her and the machine she was hooked up to closely, trying to judge how much distress was too much for her fragile system to take.

He seemed to understand her desire to help them, too, or he'd have kicked them out already.

"Maybe he was checking his watch or cell phone?" Hotch added.

Her heart rate was picking up now, and she was panting with fear, anger, distress; all of the above.

"There was a guy," she managed to say. "He seemed angry – he kept changin' seats."

"Okay, we – we have to stop," said Rawlings, one eye on her rising heart rate.

"Who was he, Nancy? Do you know his name?" Aaron asked her, giving her one last chance to help.

Doctor Rawlings stood up straighter. "Now."

Hotch nodded, recognising the point they couldn't push past, and the agents retreated, leaving the poor woman to die in peace.

0o0

While he and JJ had been dealing with the two earlier, smaller fires and the others had been surveying the most recent mess with Chief Carter, Grace and Garcia had been collating all the information they could about the four people killed in the bar and the woman who wasn't far from joining them.

"So, tell us about the bar victims," Prentiss requested, as the majority of the team reconvened in the hilariously titled 'Command Centre'.

"Where do you want to start?" Grace asked. She looked tired, and was presently trying to get the lid off a bottle of painkillers one handed.

"Alright," said Spencer. "Hilda and Roger Drake."

" _She was a teacher; he sold insurance,"_ Garcia reported.

"They've been together since high school," Grace added. "Both studied near Royal so they could stay near to one another. Married three years ago."

"Friends, enemies?" Prentiss asked.

" _Oh no, nothing like that."_ Garcia shook her head sadly. _"They seemed sweet. Their biggest problem was finding baby names. Hilda was pregnant."_

Spencer turned his head; that was unexpected. And heart-rending.

"Are you sure?" JJ responded, surprised.

"The ME hasn't even started yet," Prentiss remarked.

" _Now, people in Royal take out ads,"_ Garcia explained. _"'Lordy Lordy, Look Who's Forty'; 'Ask Jane what she was doing at the American Legion on Friday night…'"_

Prentiss pulled a face. "That's just wrong."

"It is a bit creepy, if I'm honest," Grace grunted, fighting a losing battle with the bottle of pills.

Morgan reached over the table and opened it for her. "Those things are child proof, you know," he teased, with a wink

Grace stuck her tongue out at him. "Thanks."

"That's small town life for ya," JJ reflected, a touch sourly. "Your business is everybody's business."

" _There was a belly-watch on Hilda,"_ Garcia told them.

Grace scrubbed her unencumbered hand over her face. Spencer didn't blame her.

"What about Eric Gall?" Prentiss asked.

" _Oh, Eric,"_ said Garcia, scooting back from the computer. _"He was a boozer,"_ she said, moving to the board she had set up behind her desk. _"He spent most of his time in Pop's Place. Had a few drunk and disorderlies, but he seems harmless. And given the amount of rounds he bought, it is safe to say the whole town loved him."_

Grace nodded. "Most of these people have entangled themselves in several other people's lives," she told them, with a gesture that took in all the pictures adorning the walls. "Eric just sat in the bar and drank when he wasn't working. He organised a charity barbecue in the park for a children's home one town over once a year, for the past five years."

" _Yeah, there were posters everywhere on social media, in the paper,"_ Garcia confirmed. _"He was a boozy, but stand-up sorta guy."_

They all looked up when Morgan's cell rang. "It's Hotch," he said, answering it. "Yeah, what's up?"

The rest of the team waited in various states of patience for him to relay whatever instructions Hotch was giving him.

"Mmhmm… Okay, I got it." He hung up. "Okay. Well, they managed to speak to the bartender. Accordin' to her there was a guy there before the fire. He didn't speak to anybody and he kept switchin' seats. She didn't seem to recognise him."

"Okay, so she knew the owner and the boozer, and the husband wouldn't have got up and changed seats," Prentiss said, tapping their pictures with her pen.

"Well, if the bartender didn't recognise him, maybe he's not from Royal," JJ suggested.

"That's not necessarily true," Spencer reflected, the seed of an idea beginning to take root. "What if she knew him and she just didn't realise it?"

"What, like a disguise?" JJ asked, mildly incredulous.

"The Fire Captain said the unsub knew the layout of the movie theatre," Spencer pointed out. "He used that knowledge to light the fire. But at the bar, the unsub kept changing his seat."

"Which would give him a better view of the entrances and exits," Prentiss said, following him.

Grace nodded, too. "The bar was unfamiliar to him."

"He was studyin' the layout," Morgan realised.

"What – what if he grew up in Royal and he moved away?" Spencer suggested, warming to the possibility the more he considered it. "Garcia? What year was that bar built?"

" _Uh… the bar was built… five, six years ago,"_ she replied, moving back to her seat.

Prentiss leaned forward. "And what about the movie theatre?"

" _The movie theatre was built in the forties,"_ she told them. " _It was a single screen – they divided it two years ago. Rec' centre was built in the late seventies."_

Around the table, five agents shared a look.

"What've you got?" Hotch asked, as he and Rossi came in.

"It's just a working theory," said Spencer, as Prentiss filled them in. "We were just going through the victims from the bar."

Hotch nodded for them to continue.

" _Jason Elliott opened Pop's Place six years ago when he moved to Royal from Indianapolis,"_ Garcia reported.

"Why, does he have friends or family here?" JJ asked.

"No, none that we could find," said Grace, shaking her head.

"Well, what about the bar?" Morgan enquired. "Did Jason buy it from someone? Take over their business?"

" _No, Jason started the bar himself. He named it after his father, who was the sole beneficiary."_

"Makes sense," Prentiss reflected. "He was single."

" _Well, he_ was _single, until a couple days ago,"_ Garcia corrected. _"Because two days ago, Jason married Tina Wheeler."_

"The EMT?" Rossi checked, surprised.

" _Yeah, I checked her out originally with all the first respondents, but her work record looked squeaky clean, so I let it go until I realised she had married Jason, and then I did some more aggressive digging – which I should remind you, you asked me to do. And it turns out that Tina's parents died in a fire when she was five."_

"She has a solid alibi for two out of the four fires," Grace interrupted. "Before you get your hopes up."

Garcia nodded. _"I checked three times. After they died, her and her brother Tommy were sent to live with their grandparents in Royal."_

Spencer raised an eyebrow. That could be what they were looking for.

"Send us everything you've got," Hotch requested.

" _Well, that's just it,"_ Garcia replied, frustrated. _"I got – I got plenty on Tina, but I – I – I can't really find anything on her brother. Tina, she, uh, lived in Royal, she went to a community college a few towns over, got a degree, took a job, worked hard, married Jason… But Tommy – it's like he – he just disappeared."_

"Find him, Garcia."

0o0

There weren't many people out, despite the fact that it was quite early.

 _Understandable_ , thought Ash as she walked the short journey across the town from the Volunteer Fire Service Headquarters, where she had helped them stow equipment and prepare for the next onslaught – if and when it came – back to the Police Department. Those people who were out were quiet and wary, a few of them eyeing her with mistrust as an obvious outsider.

The thing that worried her most was that more people would be staying at home, which might force the arsonist to adapt. He'd already shown his willingness to reduce the body count to prove a point – hopefully he wouldn't feel the urge to change his pattern further, or they'd be in real trouble.

Grace was leaning against the brickwork outside the front door of the Police Department when Ash arrived, her eyes shut and face turned up towards the sun.

To the casual observer, she looked like someone taking a break – maybe catching some sun between shifts. Ash, however, had known her long enough to read the underlying tension in every part of her frame. It wasn't just the pain of the broken wrist, or the grim nature of the case. There was a tightness around her friend's mouth and eyes that had nothing to do with where they were and everything to do with the rough ride she'd had in Georgia three weeks before.

It had made the national news, as anything to do with an FBI agent being abducted tended to, and Ash had slammed on the brakes of her pick-up when she'd heard Grace's name. She'd texted her to make sure she was being looked after and called her when she was two weeks into her recovery and Ash felt all the other phone calls from worries acquaintances might have tailed off. There was nothing like crowding a person to make a bad day worse, after all.

She sounded like the same old Grace, but Ash wasn't fooled.

No one went through that kind of hell and came out unscathed.

And then there was the fire. After what had happened to her father, fire cases had to be the worst kind for her. But there she was, working ridiculous hours, keeping pace with her colleagues, climbing back into the criminal mind and pushing everything as deep as she could so she could get through the day.

She was pushing everything down right now, but she was also quite obviously Coping with a capital 'c', which meant that sometime soon she would be Not Coping.

 _Stubborn jackass_ , she thought, with great affection.

"Hey," she greeted, joining Grace in an outwardly casual lean against the wall.

The other woman opened her eyes, checked there was no one else nearby and closed them again. "Hey."

"If this is the amount of sleep you're gettin', you should probably be at home, dozin' on your couch," Ash half-joked.

Grace snorted. "I'm not doing the napping standing up thing with this wrist," she said, with a slight twist to her mouth that told Ash she didn't mind her teasing. "Don't want to stay in the cast any longer than I have to. I just needed some air."

Ash nodded, even though Grace's eyes were still shut and there was no way she could have seen it. That was the problem with bottling things: every so often, for no discernible reason, things would just sort of jump up and fill your whole world until it felt like you were drowning.

"Thanks for coming out to help us, by the way," said Grace, after a few minutes of contemplative silence.

"Least I could do," Ash replied. "Given what you folks put a stop to back home."

"How is Missy Carpenter*, by the way?" Grace asked, finally opening her eyes.

"She's gettin' there," said Ash, with a half-smile.

Missy was a strong, independent woman who had been attacked by an angry mob – most of whom had now been prosecuted for trying to burn her to death, along with her cat and her candy store – during the chaos of the BAU's stay in the Pine Barrens. Those members of the community who hadn't been involved in the attack on her shop and home had rallied round her as she recovered and the shop had just re-opened.

"Still in physical therapy for some of the burn stuff, but her hair's mostly grown back, now. She and Rosemary Purdy reopened the shop together – they sell candy and homemade preserves."

"Good," said Grace, with genuine warmth. "It's good to know people are getting on with their lives after we've left. Though I'm surprised Rosemary left the sanctity of her woods. The hermit homestead life seemed to suit her."

Ash nodded. "Five parts stubbornness on behalf of her friend and one part new baby nephew, I think. She's not there all the time, but two days of the week she helps out when Missy's at the hospital. They did a gin tasting night the other month and I met her cousins."

Ash smiled at the memory. It had been a good night all round.

"Is Rosemary still working on her other side line?" Grace asked, with peculiar obfuscation – but then Ash spotted one of the local officers coming out for a smoke and guessed she didn't want him to overhear.

She waited until he'd retreated to the corner of the building before responding. "If you mean the tarot stuff, then yeah. Only now she charges for it."

Grace nodded in approval. "Excellent. And people are okay with that?"

"More or less," said Ash. "It helps that the core of the troublemakers in the area are gone. It's a lot calmer now. She still writes to Faye."

"I often wonder how she's doing," said Grace sadly. "Her life could have been so different. But then people really can be idiots."

"Her father left town," Ash said, thinking of idiots.

"I'm not surprised, after everything he did."

Ash hmmed her agreement.

They might have continued talking for a few more minutes, but Grace's phone buzzed and she answered it.

"What's up, Garcia?"

Ash watched the thunderclouds form across her friend's face and winced.

 _Now what?_

0o0

The team had all piled back into the Command Centre and called their major allies in the town together so they could run things past them.

Grace had taken up a position near the back corner of the room; not quite a part of it, and not quite outside it. She needed the distance. The information Garcia had relayed to her already had made her powerfully angry and she was aware that recent events had greatly reduced her ability to tolerate this kind of bullshit. She was afraid she was going to say something that damaged their relationship with the worthies of Royal, which wouldn't be particularly helpful at this stage. In any case it was just possible, she thought, that Garcia – who was just as furious as Grace was – was going to say it anyway.

It wasn't going to be pretty, but it was wholly necessary.

Hotch waited until everyone was settled before quietly closing the door. "We believe the target was Jason Elliott," he said, turning back to the room.

"Jason?" Carlson repeated, clearly surprised.

"The bartender said Jason stopped by the bar each day at the same time to pick up the cash and take it to the bank," Rossi told him.

"Which would have made him an easy target for anyone who knew his schedule," Prentiss added.

Carlson shook his head. "I don't get all this. Jason was a good man." He frowned, looking at them like they had all gone mad. "It may sound corny to you, but – everybody loved him."

"Two days ago, Jason Elliott married Tina Wheeler," Reid said, in an oddly cautious voice.

The chief looked surprised, but Rawlings spoke up. "Yeah, she told me about it yesterday," he said. "She said that all the tragedies made them not wanna wait. It's a damn shame."

"It always is," Grace reflected.

"What can you tell us about Tina's brother, Tommy?" Hotch asked.

A look passed between Carlson and Rawlings that was part shock, part something else.

Grace pressed her lips together to keep herself from speaking.

"Tommy?" Rawlings exclaimed, with what looked like genuine surprise.

"Um… nobody's seen him around here in more 'n ten years," Carlson told them.

Reid cleared his throat. "Uh, we actually think they may have – they just may not recognise him."

"How is that possible?" Rawlings asked.

"Well, he's aged ten years," Reid pointed out. "And he'd make sure to go unnoticed."

"Everybody else has aged, too," said Grace. "People get busy with the minutiae of daily life. They forget. People's appearances change – and what they notice about the appearances of others changes too."

"Garcia?" said Hotch, with the slightly hesitant air of someone releasing an angry tiger into the room.

" _Tommy – little Tommy Wheeler. You remember him,"_ said Garcia sharply, from the video link on the laptop. _"He and his sister Tina moved to Royal when he was five. Doc Rawlings was his paediatrician."_

Reid and Grace exchanged a wary glance as Rawlings moved so he could see Garcia better, looking confused, more than anything else.

" _Apparently early medical records indicated Tommy may have been emotionally unbalanced,"_ Garcia continued.

"Tommy was a little unstable," Rawlings agreed, a touch tentatively. "Uh, his parents dying brought that out."

Garcia nodded, just about managing not to roll her eyes. _"Granted, I don't have a medical degree,"_ she continued in a low, angry voice that was most unlike her. _"But my guess is… watching his parents die in a fire didn't help Tommy's emotional wellbeing."_

"What about Tina?" Morgan asked, gently steering them back to less shaky ground. "How did the fires affect her?"

"Uh, Tina wasn't as damaged by it as he was," Doctor Rawlings told them.

Behind him, Carlson was staring at Garcia, one hand to his mouth. He looked like something was troubling him.

 _And well it might_ , thought Grace.

Rawlings continued, "She adjusted more quickly."

"She was Tommy's lifeline," said Carlson, at last.

"She was more than that," Reid remarked. "In a situation like this – no parents, new environment, grandparents probably too old to take care of them – Tina became Tommy's whole world."

"Sister. Mother. Family," Rossi expanded.

"They were very close," Rawlings agreed, still confused. He looked at Carlson.

"Close enough that Tina distorted Tommy's love map," Rossi went on.

"The way an individual gives or receives love," Reid explained, on both Carlson and Rawlings' twin looks of bafflement. On Grace's other side, Ash looked similarly mildly perplexed. "Their love map is established by the age of six. With the death of the parents, Tommy's love map revolved exclusively around Tina."

"Yeah," said Carlson, unexpectedly. "Yeah, it was like they were in their own little world. By the time they were eight they even had their own language."

"That's what kids do when they feel like there's no one else who'll be there for them," said Grace.

Her voice must have taken on a dangerous quality, because both Reid and Hotch shot her warning looks. She fell silent, forcing herself not to mess with this process.

"It was a bit disturbing," Carlson said, not quite looking away, as if they were discussing something shameful.

" _But understandable,"_ Garcia responded hotly. _"Perfectly understandable."_

"Maybe," Carlson half-allowed, with a tight nod.

Hotch rubbed his face.

Ash cleared her throat. "Come on," she said. "Y'all know where this is goin'. Might as well get it out of the way."

Carlson glanced at her and shook his head again.

"What happened?" Hotch asked.

" _What do you think happened?"_ Garcia asked, beyond furious and barely containing it. _"People talked. It's the only real occupation in Royal!"_

Rawlings looked mildly insulted, but given what they had spent the last day ploughing through, there wasn't much he could have said to contradict it. Grace bit the end of her fingertips, willing herself to stay silent. She couldn't trust herself to stay calm, otherwise.

"There were rumours," Carlson admitted, after a minute of silence. "It was said Tommy and Tina were… too close. Nothin' was ever confirmed though," he added hastily.

" _No,"_ said Garcia, in a dangerous tone. _"It wasn't. But then the truth didn't matter."_

Carlson looked at her and seemed to come to a decision. "After the rumours started," he told them, "things got ugly. People pointed fingers. Tommy got expelled from school."

" _Based on nothing but hearsay!"_ Garcia snapped.

"Not true," said Carlson, trying to sound like he was being fair. "The school had cause."

" _They didn't!"_ Garcia retorted.

"Garcia," said Hotch, with a warning in his voice.

They needed these people to trust them and shouting at them wasn't going to help. Much. Several members of the team began looking mildly uncomfortable.

She ignored them all. _"I spoke to his teacher. She told me how the whole school – the_ whole town _– turned against him based on nothing but a rumour!"_

"Garcia," said Hotch again, trying to get her to stop.

Reid bit his lip and glanced at Grace, who gave a minute shrug. She knew what was coming.

" _She also told me another rumour, and in this one, fourteen year old Tommy was beaten within an inch of his life by_ adults _. Grown men!"_

Carlson took a deep breath, suddenly finding the entire room watching him.

"I didn't hear about it until after the fact," he said heavily. "There was nothing I could do."

Doctor Rawlings turned away, though whether through shame or guilt, Grace wasn't sure.

" _Broken bones, punctured lung,"_ Garcia continued doggedly. _"All because of a rumour."_

Emily shook her head; Morgan pinched the bridge of his nose. Rossi simply subjected him to a hard stare.

"I couldn't go after anyone based on only my suspicions," Carlson told them.

JJ stared at him, incredulous. Reid, clearly keeping his own anger at bay now, leaned against the wall, trying to distance himself so he didn't say what they were all thinking. But Garcia was doing that well enough on her own.

"So you just… let it go," said Grace, her voice little more than a growl.

"No one was talking," Carlson told them, sounding a little helpless. "Not even Tommy. So, I spoke to his grandparents and told 'em what to do."

" _Yeah,"_ said Garcia, with a hollow chuckle. _"So, they moved Tommy to a Colorado boarding school, they cut off all ties between him and his sister. It was as if Tommy never even existed."_

"Yeah," Carlson nodded earnestly. "It was for the best."

 _He really believes that,_ Grace thought, as Morgan subjected the man to the most sardonic twist of the eyebrows he had in his repertoire.

"They woulda killed him," Carlson insisted. He looked at Rawlings, who apparently hadn't known the attack hadn't been punished, because he was biting his own cheek, looking disgusted.

Reid shifted slightly, and when he spoke it was with that precision of language he had when he was truly angry. "If what Garcia has said is true then this town's actions went a long way to making Tommy who he is."

Carlson and Rawlings both looked very uncomfortable about that.

It was a hard thing indeed to realise you were the author of your own and so many of your neighbours' destruction.

"We need to talk to Tina," Rossi said decisively.

Rawlings, Carlson and the majority of the team filed out, leaving Reid, Grace and Ash behind.

Grace just had time to see the tears of anger on Garcia's cheeks before her friend severed the connection. She rubbed a hand over her face.

Spencer threw his pen onto the table with more force than was possibly required.

"Well, fuck," said Ash, with great expansiveness.

Grace nodded. "Yeah."

0o0

*See Moments of Grace – Season Four, Act One: Before I Sleep, chapters 10 – 20.


	19. Bait and Match

**Essential listening: Helena Beat, by Foster the People**

 **0o0**

Carter had taken herself off to bolster the volunteer Fire Service personnel again – and also, Spencer suspected, to keep one ear to the ground in case anything about Tommy started cropping up around town. Spencer got the impression that she wanted to be somewhere there was more life than death. That left him and Grace slowly trudging through any connection they had between Tommy and Tina, and the places and people he had destroyed.

It had taken quite a while for things to calm down after Garcia's accusations, though Spencer wasn't entirely sure if he really was calm or if he had just found a better way to manage it than when he had first heard the extent of Tommy's ostracism.

It was unusual in the extreme for a whole town to be so specifically implicated in the creation of a serial killer. Generally, bullying like this maintained itself on a much smaller scale.

His mind kept going back to Owen Savage*. He hadn't thought about him in months. If Owen had watched his mother die in a fire when he was a child instead of being relentlessly bullied by his gun loving father, West Bune would likely have gone up like kindling, too.

Spencer pinched the bridge of his nose. This case was giving him a headache.

Grace, who was sitting at the table, looked like she'd had one from more or less the moment they had landed. She was increasingly pale and drawn and Spencer was beginning to worry about the effect of the strain of coming back to a case like this one was having on her. He had half a mind to suggest she went back to the hotel and tried to catch up on some rest, but he had a strong suspicion this wouldn't go over particularly well.

Instead, he settled for making her a strong cup of tea; she didn't even notice him go into her bag for the teabags.

"Hey," he said, setting it down in front of her.

She looked from the mug up at him with an air of weary surprise that read _'Do I look that bad?'_ "Hey."

Spencer took the seat beside her, chewing the inside of his mouth.

"Trying to keep me awake?" she asked, almost joking.

He gave a non-committal shrug.

"Worrying about me, then." She tutted. "We'll have none of that, now."

A small smile broke out on his face and he chuckled, though he didn't look at her. "It's…" He trailed off and then had to start again. He swallowed. "It's good to have you back." It was easier to speak, somehow, when he couldn't see her expression. "Really good."

He could feel her eyes on him then, but not for long. She returned her gaze to the pictures on the wall. "It's good to be back." Grace dropped her eyes to her hands, picking at the fingernails of her injured hand with the other. "Better than being at home, anyway."

Spencer looked at her along his shoulder for a moment, reading the underlying stress written in every particle of her being. He looked away again and ducked his head. "Yeah."

"Yeah."

They fell silent for a few minutes. It _was_ good to be sitting side by side with her again, contemplating a case – or, honestly, not really contemplating anything at all, at least while they were still drinking their tea.

She wasn't okay yet, he was aware – okay enough for a couple of hours on the job and an excuse not to go back to an empty house where there was too much space for the nightmares to get in. It was the same way he had felt in those harrowing days after Hankel. She had pulled him out of the hole he had fallen into back then; if she needed a prop now, in whatever form that took, he would be there.

He just hoped she knew it.

"Tina Wheeler is MIA," said Morgan, wrenching them from their thoughts.

They both got to their feet as he stuck his head around the door.

"What?" asked Grace, with the same concern as Spencer felt.

"Since when?"

"She didn't show up for work – and she didn't call in," Morgan told them.

The three agents shared a dark look.

"Rawlings and Carlson think he won't hurt her," he added.

"Well, yeah, unless she rejects him," Spencer remarked.

"I'd say that's a fairly safe bet," said Grace, and then swore.

"You guys hear?" Prentiss asked, a few feet ahead of JJ.

"Yeah."

"We need to figure out where Tommy would take her," JJ said, looking professionally worried.

"I'll call Garcia back," said Grace.

"Carlson has APBs on both Tommy and Tina," Morgan informed them, as they clustered once more around the table and the board. "He's closin' every road outta Royal."

"Assuming he hasn't already left and gone back to Franklin," JJ groused.

Prentiss shook her head. "No. He won't do that."

"It's all about this town for him," Spencer agreed. "And her."

Garcia sounded strung out and tearful when the video link reconnected, and Spencer glanced away, uncomfortable. This case was really getting to her – and small wonder, really. She was very far outside her personal comfort zone on this one.

When he looked back up she was slumped in her seat, stroking the hair of one of her weird dolls almost compulsively.

Spencer wished he was back in Quantico so he could give her a hug.

"Sorry Penelope," said Grace quietly, "but we need everything you have on Tommy Wheeler."

" _Okay,"_ she said miserably. _"Okay, just give me a sec."_

They waited as patiently as they could – which in the circumstances, was not very.

With Tina missing and Tommy very likely her captor what was already not a pretty story was increasingly likely to have an extremely unpleasant ending, and they were all pretty low. Morgan was pacing around the table; JJ was sitting at it, Emily standing next to her, tense; Grace was staring at the photos, probably wondering if any of the men in them were the ones who beat a kid half to death because of an unsubstantiated rumour.

Spencer leaned against the door frame, rejecting the urge to stand with her and put an arm around her shoulders. No one would think it was weird, given recent events, but she didn't need crowding right now, no matter how bad it got.

" _According to his former teacher, Tommy Wheeler enrolled in a Colorado boarding school under the name Thomas Boran – that's his dead mother's maiden name,"_ intoned Garcia, in a peculiarly lifeless voice. _"I tracked down his records. He was at that school for half a year before he landed in juvee, where he resided for the next three years. His psych eval's during his stay were less than stellar…"_ She trailed off. _"So, how mad do you think he is?"_

Morgan sighed. "Well, if I was him, I'd be pretty mad."

" _Oh God…"_

"Garcia, the town did turn against him," Emily reminded her. "I mean, that's not an excuse –"

" _No, not Tommy – Hotch!"_ Garcia exclaimed.

Everybody looked at each other, confused.

"But why would Hotch –" Spencer began. Apparently Garcia wasn't listening, however.

" _He did tell me to dig, right? – so I dug,"_ she continued, speaking quickly and anxiously. _"And – granted – I'm not supposed to have direct contact with the public, or purport myself as an FBI agent – and, okay, I'm definitely not supposed to accuse someone of a felony, or even a misdemeanour. Especially when I don't have any actual evidence."_ She paused, stricken. _"Oh God, I did just what they did! I – I based everything on a rumour! I got sucked right in, I didn't mean to, I –"_

"Hey, hey, hey! Crazy lady," said Grace in mild alarm, putting herself behind JJ so Garcia could see her. "You did nothing wrong. That's what this job is."

" _But I – I –"_

"Garcia, c'mon baby," Morgan interrupted, not unkindly. "Stick to Tommy Wheeler."

" _Right, sorry,"_ she said, abruptly pulling herself together. _"He was released from juvee when he was sixteen, when the trail goes cold –"_

"You couldn't find him?" JJ asked, with a wince.

An unpleasant knot began to form in Spencer's stomach.

" _No, I said the trail went cold,"_ said Garcia, a touch haughtily. _"I didn't say he disappeared. This is the part I'm actually good at. Whatever he did in the interim remains a mystery, to my chagrin, but at the age of twenty-one, Thomas Boran re-emerged in Franklin Indiana, about three hundred miles away from Royal."_

"That's where those nuisance fires were, right?" Grace recalled.

" _Uh huh. Said Mr Boran purchased copious amounts of gasoline two months ago, which is not unusual to do in Indiana, except that Mr Tommy Wheeler, slash Boran, didn't own a farm."_

Spencer grimaced. "He wanted to run some tests."

" _Roger that,"_ said Garcia. _"After that spending spree, that's when the trail goes cold. I can't find him."_

Morgan's cell rang and he answered it. "Yeah, Hotch…" There was a lengthy pause. "Alright. Still no sign of Tina. He looked at Prentiss. He wants you to bring Rawlings."

She nodded and took off to find him. Garcia cut the video link, having had enough human interaction for the moment.

"Pearce, sorry, but Hotch said –"

"I have to stay here. I know," she told him, with a slightly wry smile.

"Sorry," Morgan said again, and he and JJ headed out.

Spencer hovered by the door for a moment. "Do you… um. You want I should stay?"

She looked at him for just a second longer than was necessary; he sensed her hesitance. "No," she said, at last. "I'm good."

"Are you sure? I could –"

Grace shook her head. "No – I'll be fine. Just tear Tina's house apart if you have to."

0o0

Emily walked past the dining table for the third time in ten minutes, making Doctor Rawlings look up anxiously. She continued past Hotch, who was leafing through a bureau, and Morgan, who was rooting through the contents of a media cupboard, and headed to the mantelpiece. It was covered in photographs.

She heard the door open behind her, but didn't turn, focusing on the minutiae of the search. "We've locked down the town and put out a state-wide alert," Carlson reported. "So far? Nothin'."

"Where in Royal would Tommy take his sister?" Hotch asked, straightening up.

"It's hard to say," said Carlson, with complete honesty.

Emily still wasn't sure how to take him. He seemed like a good man – still did, after everything they had discovered. His decision to advise Tommy's grandparents to send him away and cut him entirely out of his sister's life had been decidedly poor, but he genuinely believed – right up until they told him otherwise – that he was acting in the best interest of both twins.

 _He thought he was saving a life_ , she thought, _when in the end he indirectly contributed to the deaths of thirty-six people._

She grimaced at the pictures on the mantle. It was horrible to think that some of her decisions might turn out the same way, one day.

 _But I wouldn't have told them to cut him out of their lives._

"It's likely to be a place that's important to the both of them," Hotch explained. "Maybe a place that they went to together as kids."

Rawlings shifted. Emily glanced in his direction. There was another good man struggling with past decisions that he had believed were right. "I don't know… the only place I can think of is their grandparents' old house, but… that was torn down years ago."

Hotch shook his head. "That's not gonna help us."

The two Royal worthies appeared to be at a loss.

"I've got pictures of her with the grandparents and friends," said Emily, examining one closely. "Nothing with Tommy."

"Garcia was right," Rossi said, from another room. "After he was sent away, Tommy no longer existed. Not even as a memory. Wait…"

Everyone turned in the direction of the bedroom. A few, tense moments later he emerged carrying a shoebox of what looked like photographs.

 _Jackpot,_ thought Emily.

"I found Tommy," he said, bringing it to the table. "Or, what she had left of him."

Emily helped him turn it out onto the table and Reid appeared from the garage to help rummage through it.

It was mostly photos of the two of them as children; some alone or together, with their grandparents, with their parents before the fire. There were other mementos, too. Ticket stubs from the state fair, a friendship bracelet, a poster for a dance.

"Hotch, I think we have something here," said Reid, pulling out the poster. Emily squinted at it; it was for a Junior High spring formal. "What dance is this?"

"The – uh – spring formal," said Carlson, taking a look. "They hold it every year at the Community Centre."

"May of '98," Reid read aloud. "This is just before Tommy was beaten and forced out of town."

Emily felt her pulse marginally quicken. This could be it.

Hotch took the poster, looking thoughtful. "Is this dance something Tommy and Tina would have gone to?"

Carlson thought about it. "Yeah, it's a big event," he said at last. "All the kids go, even if they don't have formal dates."

"So, they could have gone together?" Hotch checked.

The chief looked from one agent to another, picking up on the urgency in their body language. "Absolutely."

0o0

The phone call had been unusually terse and he had forbidden her from entering the building unless he summoned her on the radio or something drastic happened, but Hotch had wanted Grace on the far side of the barricade of vehicles blocking the entrances and exits to the Community Hall.

 _In case things get out of hand_ , he had said, in a dark voice, and she had interpreted this as 'In case Tommy tries to burn the team to a crisp'.

She got the impression that he was about as happy to be asking her as she was to be asked.

So, she was loitering on what she was thinking of as the tape-line – though there wasn't any actual tape, given the urgency of the situation, shifting slowly from foot to foot in agitation and feeling distinctly vulnerable without her flak vest on. She'd left it back at the Police Department, unable to get it on properly with only one working hand. Running four blocks from the Police Headquarters had taken more out of her than she had expected and some of the bruises that she thought had healed from the events in Georgia ached dully beneath her skin, like echoes of themselves.

JJ was a little way away, expertly controlling the crowd that was beginning to form; the team and several local emergency vehicles had screamed to a halt not ten minutes before and those few townspeople who had ventured out had stuck their heads out of the bars and convenience stores on Main Street to see what was happening. News that there might very soon be an arrest was beginning to spread.

Grace wasn't sure JJ was even aware of her presence. She was hanging back, knowing that Hotch's earlier instructions about her whereabouts had been pretty explicit. She didn't particularly want to have to try to explain why he'd had such a sudden change of heart; she wasn't sure she'd have the energy.

All the time they had been in Royal, a sense of deep disquiet had been growing within her – or perhaps it had been there before, since Rossi had driven her home from the airstrip, teasing her about inconsequential things. Whenever it had started, she thought she had been staving it off quite well, but now…

But now, with her team on the line, trying to talk down a man who thought burning people alive was a fun thing to do, that feeling was edging ever closer to full blown panic.

She bit her lip, running her eyes over the windows of the Social Hall. The lights were on inside and she – and the other lookers-on – could hear raised voices. If Tommy reacted badly to their attempt to save Tina, would she even have time to intervene?

 _Or would it be like Dad?_ her head supplied ruthlessly. _Too damn late to do anything but watch him scream…_

Grace shifted her weight again, weighing her options. If she could get closer, she would be better able to help – but if she got too close, she might push Tommy over the edge.

 _Or in the state you're in, provide him with another hostage._

She scowled. It was killing her not to go any closer.

Though nothing was presently on fire (and hopefully nothing would be), after several conflagrations and little wind, the whole town smelled like smoke and petrol. It was too much like the night her father had died. She couldn't get it out of her nostrils. Her lungs felt clogged with it.

Her thoughts were beginning to spiral, which was a bad sign. Desperately, she pushed her panic as far down within her as it would go.

 _Just a little longer_. _Just until I know they're safe._

 _This is going to kill Tina,_ she thought _._

And then the doors of the Social Hall opened, and Morgan and Chief Carlson hustled a cuffed young man in the direction of the nearest car – quickly, so the crowd didn't figure out what was going on and try to take matters into their own hands like they had when he was fourteen.

Next came Prentiss and Rossi, helping to support a stumbling, sobbing Tina, then Reid, looking mightily relieved. Bringing up the rear, she saw Hotch scan the crowd, picking out JJ and then meeting Grace's gaze.

She managed to return it for a fraction of a second and then turned and ducked through the swelling crowd. Grace strode quickly through the town in the general direction of the Police Department, but she didn't turn into the car park, or up the front steps when she passed them. Instead she kept her head down and her feet moving, allowing them to carry her out into the dark, welcoming night, and didn't stop until she hit open country.

0o0

 _I have loved to the point of madness; that which is called madness, that which to me, is the only sensible way to love._

 _Francois Sagan_

0o0

The footsteps got gradually nearer, the beam of the torch moving slowly from side to side with the practiced ease of an investigator. At length, they caught the edge of Grace's boot.

"That you, Kid Vicious, or am I gonna be callin' for an ambulance in a minute?"

She almost laughed.

Almost.

The ability to find things funny seemed very distant, just now.

She did, however, sit up marginally straighter. For all her flippancy, Ash had sounded worried. "It's me."

"Good. I thought I was gonna have to walk all night," her friend grumbled. The beam of the torch skimmed briefly over the patch of dirt beside where Grace was sitting, just as briefly over the patch of wall she was leaning against, and then clicked off. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness again she heard Ash sit down, then felt her familiar weight settle against her.

She could smell her friend's faint, delicate perfume. It went a little way to cutting through the smoke and petrol that seemed to be clinging to her, even now, a solid twenty minute walk out of Royal.

"How'd you find me?" she asked quietly, after a few minutes where there was only the sound of their breathing and the nocturnal scurryings of nature.

"Followed the road out of town. One of the volunteers said he saw you headin' this way, and I figured you'd keep to the road until you saw a reason not to. An old, abandoned picnic area seemed exactly the kind of place I oughta look."

Grace chewed at the inside of her cheek. Had she really been that easy to read?

"You had us worried," said Ash, when the silence stretched on too long. "Your team don't show it, but they're a bunch o' mother hens at heart."

"I'm okay."

"And I'm Boris Johnson."

That did make the corners of Grace's mouth lift, even if only for a moment. She didn't comment, however.

"Really?" said Ash. Then: "Alright, I know you're not okay. Your boss knows you're not okay. Your team knows you're not okay. Carlson's too busy with that Wheeler kid and keeping him and the town from murderin' one another, but even Doc Rawlings asked how you were doin', and he's only just met you."

Grace shrugged, aware that Ash would feel it through the movement of her arm.

"You're pale, you're tired – we both know this isn't just about the fires. When was the last time you took a day off?"

"I've been on leave for two and a half weeks," Grace told her mildly.

"Medical leave ain't the same as real leave and you know it."

"I took a weekend a month before, then."

Ash shook her head. "Honey, Michael's birthday is not the same as a vacation," she admonished, gently.

Grace hunkered down against the crumbling brickwork.

"Actually, I worked his birthday." She told her about the case in Cleveland, and about how Rossi had needed them all there, no matter what.

Ash audibly tutted. "I couldn't do what you folks do," she reflected. "You know, someone pretty smart once told me that too much darkness is bad for the soul."

"They sound like they didn't know what they were talking about," said Grace, with a sour twist to her mouth.

"It was you."

"Well, there you go, then." She picked at the edge of the cast.

"The hours are a bitch, too," Ash continued, apparently in a philosophical mood.

"Forensic fire investigators work weird shifts, as well," Grace pointed out.

"Yeah, but not all at once, and not for years at a stretch," her friend argued, then subsided. "It's still not as bad as London, but…"

" _But,_ it's my job. I chose it, and I choose it still."

There was a silence in which Ash somehow managed to silently convey that Grace was entitled to be a bit nuts, but that her chosen profession was both unhealthy and emotionally damaging, without either speaking or moving.

"I want to settle down," she said, at last. "Find a guy who's hot and kind and funny, and can make decent Mexican food."

"Morgan makes a mean enchilada," Grace teased half-heartedly, but Ash shook her head.

"Nah – with the lives you guys live? I mean, don't get me wrong, the man is basically a god in human form – and a form which I happen to very much appreciate, if you get my drift – and I dig that he has this drive to do the right thing, no matter what, but I don't know if I wanna be with someone who's a martyr to their job. However noble that is. I want kids and a family, not some distant hero who's only home every third weekend because he's busy climbing around the inner workings of psychopath's brains."

Even though it was pitch black, Grace gave Ash such a penetrating look that her friend chuckled.

"I'm not saying I'm not gonna let him take me for dinner."

"That's what I thought," said Grace, though privately she felt Ash had a point. "Anyway, you're just as bad as we are."

"Well, maybe. You could do with a little fun," said Ash, after a while.

Grace huffed. "I could do with a few weeks of paperwork," she groused, but she had asked to come back to work, so that was her own fault.

Ash treated the remark with the scorn it deserved and ignored it entirely.

"What about the tall, skinny one you got stuck in the car with?" she suggested, which made Grace feel particularly empty and brittle. "Reid? I mean, he's not really your type, but –"

"No," said Grace, a little too quickly, wanting very much to change the subject.

Even in the darkness she felt the sharp look her friend shot her.

"There was something," she said quietly. "It might have been a proper something, even, but it's definitely a nothing now."

"What happened?" Ash sounded solicitous now, and a little sorry she had asked.

"Just stuff. Both of us were fucking idiots." She frowned, peering off into the black, and wasn't wholly aware that she had continued speaking. "I mean, lately I was sort of hoping… But it doesn't matter. He's made it clear that he doesn't – we're just better off as friends," she finished awkwardly.

Her friend made a diplomatic sound and slung an arm around Grace's shoulders.

"Ah, kid – what are we gonna do with you?" she asked.

"I don't know. Maybe I should retrain as a librarian, or something."

Ash snorted. "You wouldn't last ten minutes."

"Fair."

"But you _have_ seen enough of sadness to last several lifetimes," Ash told her ruefully. "It's time you had some happiness. You deserve it."

It was Grace's turn to make a non-committal sound. Of all the people presently in or just outside Royal, Indiana, she felt Ash knew exactly why that wasn't true.

Her friend seemed to sense the direction of her thoughts, because she gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze. "It wasn't your fault, honey. All that crap in London. None of it."

Grace didn't agree, but she hugged Ash anyway and allowed herself to be helped to her feet and piloted in the direction of the road.

0o0

She had headed home the moment she had known Tommy Wheeler had been apprehended, unable to face the task of taking down the photos in her tech lair, and badly in need of some TLC. Fortunately, JJ had texted Kevin and he had shown up at her apartment with takeout, a stack of kids' movies and his usual weird cheerfulness, and that had done much to calm her down and put her back on an even keel.

Still, even dressed in the brightest clothes she could find in her wardrobe and bolstered by the news that her team was coming home, the gallery of the dead in her office was a tremendously depressing sight. At least they could put this particular nightmare – and the accompanying melee of smaller, more ordinary nightmares to rest. Sighing, Penelope found a box and started putting pictures and post-its in it.

Idly, pulling apart a mass of sticky labels with people's names and family connections on, she wondered when Hotch would arrive to berate her on her behaviour from the day before. She couldn't even bring herself to worry about it; on several levels, she was still too angry.

As if thinking of him had summoned him, he strode into her den. She glanced in his direction: his expression was impossible to read – but then, when wasn't it?

"You guys choose this," she said, and continued boxing up the photos feeling emotionally drained. "Turning people over like rocks and looking at all their creepy crawly things underneath. And I get it, I do – it's the only way to catch them, but… I wanna see the good in people. I _choose_ to see the good in people, and getting into someone's mind and trying to find the godawful thing that happened to them, that made them do the godawful thing to somebody else…" She shook her head angrily. "Has seriously impaired my ability to giggle, and it makes my brain all wonky and _I don't like it_."

She glared at Hotch, and then remembered he was her boss, and someone she loved.

He was frowning at her (when _wasn't_ he frowning?), but this was one she recognised as, 'I'm sorry I made you do something that sucked'.

A little taken aback, she waited for him to speak.

"Garcia."

"Yes, sir?"

He came further into her office. "I just wanted to thank you for your excellent work on this case. And I understand that what you did was – for you – very difficult. But your contributions are essential for the success of this team."

Gobsmacked didn't even begin to cover it. Penelope had so completely convinced herself that he was going to yell at her that this sudden, bewildering praise confused the heck out of her. Oddly, she felt a little healed. Not much – but it was a beginning.

"Thank you, sir," she managed to say – and hoped he knew how much she meant it.

"I know you see the good in people, Penelope," he told her gently. "Always. And I would never want you to change that."

He left her standing in the middle of her office, trying to figure out how – on a day when she hated everyone and everything – he had managed to make her smile.

0o0

Nobody had said anything when she and Ash had pitched up in the hotel, dusty and tired from the walk along the road – but, she had noted, none of them had gone to bed, either, even though it had been achingly late.

Idly, as she had taken herself off to bed and left Ash to go for a drink with Morgan, she had wondered why.

More exhausted than she had been in a long time, she had gone straight to bed, and breakfasted with Ash before the others even came downstairs, seeing her old friend off with a pang of regret that their time together hadn't been spent doing something less horrifying. On the jet, too, she had moved apart from them, curling up in the two seater at the front of the plane where people sat when they didn't want to be disturbed.

Someone had still put a blanket over her when she had fallen asleep, though, and she was torn between feeling grateful at the anonymous gesture and uncomfortable that she was under such scrutiny. But then, that was what this team did when one of them was in distress: find ways to comfort them without ever, _ever_ , mentioning it.

Sometimes she wondered whether it was out of a kind of superstition that someone higher up the chain of command might get to hear of it and force them into some kind of programme. Or just suspend them, depending on the issue.

It wasn't the same as it had been the last time she had found herself at the wrong end of a serial killer's singular, unforgiving rage. Sure, a few of the people in her old team had been there for her, when they could – and that was something she would never, ever forget – but the rest… She had learned that solitude could be a kind of healing in itself, and despite the loneliness and grief of that time, she had been okayish when she got to America. Ish.

Of course, she hadn't had much of a choice last time. This time around, she didn't expect anyone to help her; withdrawing from them was the best way to keep the effects of her trauma from impacting on them or their cases. She was no stranger to being alone, even if being in the office where the team were, right now felt decidedly safer than being in her house on her own.

Still, when Hotch had ordered her to go home, she hadn't had the energy to argue, and had taken the AMTRAK out of Quantico, feeling hollow and empty.

The feeling had multiplied considerably when she had tried to switch the light on in her living room and had discovered that there was a power cut. Something to do with an unexpectedly felled tree, she gathered from the community Facebook group on her phone. She hadn't even noticed the extra layer of darkness as she had trudged along Apple Tree Lane.

Weary beyond belief and unable to escape the encroaching, all-consuming loneliness that was beginning to occupy her, she had simply sank onto her sofa, too shattered to move – or even think.

She didn't know how long she had been sitting there, but when someone knocked on her front door her neck gave the click she associated with it being held in one place for too long.

Frowning, Grace got stiffly to her feet and went to look through the peephole. There were several dark shapes outside, two of whom appeared to be arguing.

"She could be asleep – all the lights are out."

"The lights are out on the whole street, Babygirl. The power's out."

"I don't wanna wake her up if she's sleeping – she looked so tired this afternoon."

"I'm gonna knock again."

Before he could, Grace opened the door, surprising Morgan as he lifted his hand.

"Hey," he said, warmly.

"Hey, did we wake you?" Garcia asked, using the light from her mobile phone to illuminate Grace's features.

She shook her head, feeling oddly numb.

Another shadow stuck its head around the spiky fronds of winter jasmine that obscured one side of the door. It turned out to be Emily. "You hungry?"

"Er…" Grace thought about it. She wasn't sure. While she didn't feel hungry, she hadn't actually eaten since breakfast and remedying this would probably be a good idea. Realising they were probably expecting a response, she gave an ambiguous shrug.

"Of _course_ she's hungry," Garcia argued, though on what evidence she based this claim, Grace wasn't sure.

"Well, it's a good job we brought pizza, then," said Morgan, flashing her a grin.

Before she could argue, he pushed past her – gently enough, but with deliberate intent – displacing her from the doorway sufficiently for both Garcia and Emily to follow him. Sure enough, Emily was carrying a stack of pizza boxes.

Grace's mouth fell open. She stared after them, nonplussed.

"Um…"

She hadn't even realised he was there until he spoke. Grace tore her attention from the sound of three FBI agents bickering about who ought to hold the torch and where she kept her plates, to see Reid standing just beyond the doorway, looking extremely awkward.

He gave an eloquent sort of facial shrug that managed to convey that none of this was his idea. "Sorry about this. I – I couldn't talk them out of it, um…"

 _But you tagged along anyway,_ her mind supplied, sensing the lie even staggering as it was to keep up. Who else had she told about not wanting to be at home?

 _Or am I just that easy to profile?_

A little thrown by events that were – she was realising, with increasing clarity – entirely beyond her control, she looked from him, to the sounds of mild but cheerful chaos in the kitchen and then back again.

Reid was still standing there, as if he wasn't sure if he was welcome. He rubbed the back of his neck and opened his mouth, but apparently changed his mind and closed it again.

For the first time in a very long time, Grace had no idea whatsoever what to say.

The uncomfortable silence might have gone on for quite some time, if Emily hadn't called out from the kitchen, "Hey, where do you keep your bottle opener?"

Grace turned towards her, blinking foolishly at the question. "Er…"

"Second drawer down," Reid answered, before she could properly think. "Uh… sorry," he said again, quickly. "I'm just gonna –"

He passed her too, and Grace stood in the hall for a full minute before realising she probably ought to close the door.

By now, the sounds of friendly disagreement had moved from the kitchen to her living room – and from the look of the flickering light casting long shadows on the walls, someone had found the candles.

She hovered by the doorway, feeling peculiarly self-conscious, and watched Morgan and Prentiss arranging food and drink on the floor, Garcia pulling the cushions off her sofa so they would be more comfortable and Reid lighting more candles in the windowsill. He glanced in her direction, fumbling with the unlit matches; looking bashful, but oddly unrepentant now that they were all inside.

Grace bit her lip, trying to work out whether she ought to throw them all out or just go with it.

At length, Morgan spotted her and came and flung an arm around her shoulder.

"Alright?" he asked, in that brotherly way he sometimes had.

For a moment, Grace wondered whether Ash had had anything to do with the present state of commandeering that was occurring in her house, but dismissed the thought. Ash was far more likely to send her a random care package in a few weeks' time; she understood her reticence to socialise when she was under the kind of pressure that gnawed at a person's soul – and where it had come from.

This, however, didn't seem quite as stressful as she had imagined it would. And they were actually here, in her house. Making it feel a lot more like a home.

Slowly, she looked around her candlelit living room, from one earnest team-member's face to another and felt a surge of warmth for the weird little family she had come to call her own. Feeling humbled (and a little bit like she might just burst into tears in front of them), she managed to nod.

Four pairs of shoulders minutely relaxed.

"Alright," said Morgan, and for the first time in nearly three weeks, Grace began to think that maybe – just maybe – she would be.

0o0

*See Moments of Grace – Season Three, Act Three: Thicker than water, or Season Three, Episode 16 of Criminal Minds – Elephant's Memory.


	20. Conflicted

**Essential listening: Gasoline, by Halsey**

Grace grinned at the picture on JJ's phone, out of which a relaxed detective grinned while his little son looked truly bewildered by the presence – in an enclosure beside them – of a large, bristled pig.

"Good weekend, then?" she remarked, as JJ laughed.

"Yeah. Real good. Nice to have a chance to unwind, you know?" her friend told her cheerfully.

They were squashed into the back of the lift, making their way up to the bullpen. Since Will was at home with Henry today, JJ had the car and had called at Apple Tree Lane to offer Grace a lift. It wasn't technically on the way, but she had allegedly called at a house in Grace's area to pick up a second hand walker car for Henry.

Though the car was in the back seat, Grace strongly suspected her friend was using the excuse to check up on her.

She hadn't really expected the team to be so supportive, but they had all gone out of their way to make sure she was doing okay following events in Georgia, and she appreciated it.

"How was yours?"

Grace smiled. "Well, between Garcia and Kevin marching me around the comic book store and Rossi making me watch black and white movies with him, I didn't have much time to mope around."

JJ chuckled. "You know it's because we care," she said, with a shrewd glance that told her she was less sure that Grace wasn't offended than she sounded.

"I do." She pursed her lips together. "You may as well ask, you know."

The media liaison feigned ignorance for all of thirty seconds before laughing and conceding the point. "Profilers, right. Are you okay?"

"I'm about as good as I can be," Grace answered honestly. "I'm sleeping most nights with some interruption, but that's a lot better than not at all. I'm still occasionally hyperaware and I'm not over-keen at having my back to doorways, but other than that I'm getting there. I'm pleased not to have to have my arm in the sling anymore – though it's in my bag in case I get tired – and I'm annoyed I can't get the cast off for another couple of weeks."

JJ seemed to accept this. "It must be so annoying in this weather," she remarked and Grace agreed wholeheartedly.

May had begun with several warm, sunny days, which for Virginia meant the beginning of the mild stickiness that would remain and intensify for the rest of the summer.

"It's itchy as buggery," Grace admitted. "Still, the doctor thinks it's healing okay, which is something."

The two friends continued to make small talk about the weather and their leisure activities until they reached the bullpen and JJ peeled off towards her office. Although she appreciated JJ's concern – and her grace in accepting what her friend did or didn't want to admit – it was a bit of relief to make the short approach to her desk without having to manifest the outward level of okayness required to keep the majority of the team off her back, which could be tiring at times.

It was a nice problem to have, though, as they went.

She ran her eye over the desks; Morgan and Emily were yet to arrive, based on the lack of coats and bags, but Reid was already installed, mindlessly going through his emails. Giving him a greeting he returned with a glance and a nod that suggested the morning's departmental missives were particularly dry, she turned to her own desk.

And stopped.

There, between the keyboard and the in-tray, was a carry-out Styrofoam cup, as used in the local coffee shops. A thin plume of steam from the hole in the top suggested that its deposition had been recent – and that it may not have simply been abandoned by someone whose stack of files had got out of hand.

It wasn't an unusual sight in the bullpen, which ran on about 80% caffeine, 17% take-out and 3% fumes, but the fact that there was an apparently unclaimed cup on her desk _was_ unusual.

 _It didn't used to be, though,_ she thought abruptly. She narrowed her eyes and looked at Reid, who wasn't giving any outward sign that he was aware of being observed.

Back when Grace had been new to the department and the two of them had been close conspirators, he had brought her tea every morning they were in Quantico, without fail. It had been a comfortable kind of ritual – a way for him to thank her for being there for him when he needed it.

It was always there, like a reminder that despite the dark nature of the work undertaken in the bullpen, there was a world outside where things like friendship and comfort existed. It had always been the same tea, too…

Grace picked up the cup and sniffed the contents. Peppermint. No one else ever brought her peppermint tea.

 _Peppermint: soothing to the stomach, and to the soul,_ she recalled, from research that was no longer strictly relevant now she was in the FBI. _Allied with fire; good for travelling. Associated with love, friendship, sleep, healing and psychic powers._

Odd how these things could seem to fit a situation so well, even where they were a coincidence…

She glanced at Reid again. He was watching her out of the corner of his eye now, paying no attention whatsoever to the error message on the screen he was supposedly looking at.

Later, it had begun to feel to both of them like a bizarre courtship thing.

Now, reasonably sure of the origins of the cup on her desk, she was unsure how to take it.

It was a message, certainly, but what did it signify?

A peace offering, perhaps? A signal of a permanent end to hostilities after long months of disagreement and distance?

He was waiting for a response, she knew, by the tension in his shoulders and the listless tapping of his fingers on the edge of his keyboard.

She considered him out of the corner of her eye as he considered her out of his. Then she lifted the cup to her lips and drank.

Whatever he was trying to tell her, this seemed to satisfy him and he turned his attention back to his computer.

 _Hmm,_ she thought to herself, with no particular qualification, and went to find the form she needed to fill in about this week's medical.

0o0

JJ, whose cheerful weekend demeanour had shifted to the usual workday solemnity between leaving Grace by her colleagues' desks and sorting out the files for their briefing, deftly flicked the pointer wand at the screen.

Today's crop of the dead appeared. He was a reasonably handsome young man in his ID picture, but in the crime scene image to its left he had been rather pointedly shoved into a wardrobe. Grace grimaced at the contorted corpse. She did not envy the person who had had to get him out of there and onto a stretcher once rigor had set in.

"Daniel Keller, twenty-one. A junior at Benjamin Franklin University," JJ told them. "He was killed last night, while spring-breaking in South Padre Island. COD: asphyxiation. He was the second victim to be murdered there in the past three nights."

Several new images appeared on the screen. This victim seemed young, strong and reasonably handsome, too.

 _So, this unsub has a type,_ Grace thought.

"The first was William Browder, also on spring break," JJ went on. "COD asphyxiation. They were both sexually assaulted prior to death."

Emily raised her eyebrows. " _Men_ being raped and murdered on spring break? Well, that's a twist."

"So far the deaths have been localised to one hotel," Hotch informed them.

"Uh, The Hudson Street Hotel," said JJ, bringing a photo of the frontage up on the screen. "Initially, the hotel was filled to capacity, but lost 20% occupancy overnight."

"Not surprising," Grace mused. "I think I'd probably go elsewhere if I thought there was a serial killer picking people off the bookings list."

She took a sip of her tea, allowing the soothing aroma to curl around her senses.

"Well, we should get a list of everyone that works there," Morgan suggested. "There's a good chance one of them is the unsub, or at the very least has interacted with him."

JJ nodded. "Yeah, Garcia's already on that. Both victims were discovered by hotel staff, the last after online checkout indicated the room had been vacated."

Grace raised an eyebrow. _Clever._

"So, he wanted the bodies discovered," Emily postulated. "And sooner, rather than later."

"That's atypical for the way the bodies were deposited," said Grace, frowning at the autopsy picture. "Usually people are stuffed in cupboards because their attacker has panicked. Nine times out of ten, it's a domestic crime, too. Someone who's been beaten to death and then concealed. This feels different."

"Look at the way they're posed," said Reid, getting up to have a better look. "Naked, cowering in the foetal position."

"He's sending a message," Rossi proposed. "Something about this is important to him. We just need to figure out what."

"And we need to do it soon." Hotch got to his feet. "The police suspect the unsub could be another vacationing student, though I'm not willing to rule out local involvement."

"Makes sense," said Rossi, following suit. "If the killer is a student, they could be halfway across the country by the time we're onto them."

"If he's a local, we could lose him as soon as his victim pool dries up," Emily added.

"I don't know, with a cycle like this is shaping up to be we'd probably see them crop up again elsewhere pretty fast," Grace remarked. "It's an unusual MO."

"Either way, we're almost out of time," Hotch told them. "South Padre spring break season ends this weekend."

0o0

 _Light thinks it travels faster than anything, but it is wrong. Not matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it._

 _Terry Pratchett_

0o0

Reid closed the shade on the window to stop the glare of the sun and got up to stand beside JJ, who was directing the others towards the screen set into the wall of the plane. They looked up, each in a different state of worrying at the problem in front of them.

"National media have picked up on the story," JJ told them. "We're gonna have to made a statement when we land."

"Well, we wanna make people aware without obviously causing panic," Hotch commented.

"Stress hypervigilance. The whole buddy system. Yeah, I'm all over it," JJ agreed. But she couldn't help feeling worried. "I just don't think anyone's gonna listen."

"What do you mean?" Reid asked her, perplexed.

JJ smiled at him. Sometimes she just couldn't get over how innocent he could be. "Come _on_ , drunk college students don't exactly want to hear they shouldn't talk to strangers."

"Ah," he nodded, understanding. "Right." He moved away and took the seat beside Morgan, looking mildly embarrassed.

"I don't know, they'll probably be more than up for the buddy system," said Grace, with a twist of her mouth; the others smirked.

"Was there any DNA left on the scene?" Emily asked, glancing at the laptop on the fold-up table next to Hotch.

" _Oh, yeah. Too much DNA,"_ Garcia told them with a barely suppressed shudder. _"This portion of The Garcia Show will be brought to you by the letter 'I' for 'icky'. The lab has recovered over a hundred different trace samples,"_ she continued. Reid's eyebrows met his hairline; Grace pulled a face; Emily shook her head. _"As multiple guests create a cesspool of DNA."_

"Ew," said Grace.

JJ nodded, grimacing at the picture that data painted.

" _Also, there is no way to determine the exact time of 'secretion', or to eliminate anyone actually working in the hotel,"_ Garcia finished unhappily.

Grace made a noise of disgust. "Come on Penelope, we spend two thirds of our lives in hotels. Don't tell us stuff like that."

" _Honey, I can only report what the lab techs send to me – and oh man am I glad I am seldom out there with you."_

"Were you able to find any connection between the first two victims?" Morgan asked her.

Garcia shook her head, typing commands into one of the many search enquiries open on her screens. _"No. They – they grew up in different states. They went to colleges on different coasts. I did the whole cross-referenced credit card thing, couldn't make a connect."_

"So the hotel's the only common denominator?" Rossi checked.

" _Yeah,"_ said Garcia. _"And it – it should be noted that the first victim, William Browder, wasn't exactly a registered guest."_

"Well, that's a popular thing to do," Morgan observed. "I mean, youngsters do it all the time. They rent a room, they pack in as many kids as possible to save costs."

"It's how we used to go to conferences outside London," Grace mused. "What?" she asked, on Rossi and Emily's entertained expressions. "We weren't raking it in. We were coppers, not saints."

She frowned after she had said it, as if it had reminded her of something she would rather forget. JJ narrowed her eyes slightly, wondering what it was. Grace kept a lot of her past close to her chest. Not that JJ felt she ought to pry, of course; just sometimes she wondered where certain of Grace's behaviours came from.

Morgan nodded. "Me too, back in college. We could be dealing with hundreds of unregistered guests."

"We need to check every guest, whether they were on the books or not," said Hotch, leaning forward in his seat.

"Male raping male," JJ mused, sitting down. "So, are we presuming our unsub or victims could be gay?"

"That's not necessarily true," Reid replied, over the back of Hotch's seat. "In male rape, sexual preference typically has less to do with the crime than the power and dominance the attacker feels from the act itself."

"Still, it's a question we should ask the families when we interview them," Emily reflected, making a note. "Could help us determine how the unsub met the victims."

"Alright, we've got a lot of work to do," Hotch declared. "Emily, JJ and I will go to the local PD and start victimology." He dropped a stack of photographs of the Hudson on the table in front of Rossi. "The rest of you, here's your new home."

"Me too?" Grace asked, surprised.

For the past few weeks she had been relegated to the local PD or Sheriff's Office wherever they pitched up, in the wake of the abduction and assault in Peach Tree City. Although her wrist was on the road to recovery, it was still in a cast and she was nowhere near ready to retake her firearms certification.

Also, everyone on the team was aware that her cheerfulness was just a little forced, her emotional armour still very much under repair. There was an unspoken agreement to make sure she didn't take on too much, too fast.

But Hotch nodded, even so. "Yes. We're going to need everyone on this one." He paused, and narrowed his eyes slightly. "Okay?"

"No, I was gonna hit the pool," she joked, and shook her head. The slight hint of worry around her eyes betrayed her, however. "Just checking."

0o0

The weather in South Padre was _glorious_ – hot, but not unpleasantly so, with a warm sea breeze. It was the kind of climate that made Grace think she ought to take her friend Ash's advice and actually book a vacation somewhere.

 _Maybe with fewer college kids, though,_ she thought as several half-naked, hip young things sauntered past.

She followed the others inside, putting such thoughts to one side.

"You must be the FBI," said a woman with her hands on her hips.

Grace immediately pegged her as a manager. There was the distinct impression that they were trespassing on her domain. She was cool, calm, tidily dressed and not unattractive.

"David Rossi," said the senior agent, exuding his usual charm while shaking her hand. "These are agents Morgan, Pearce and Reid."

She shook hands with the other three – even Reid, who appeared to have temporarily overcome his squeamishness towards other people's touch, which he sometimes did. Usually entirely at random, when he was busy thinking about something else. Grace wondered what it was.

"Julie Riley. I'm the manager."

 _Nailed it_ , thought Grace.

"You were on duty when the latest body was discovered?" Morgan asked her.

She nodded. "That's right."

"Did you happen to notice anyone out of the ordinary?" Reid asked.

"I'm afraid not," she told them, looking like she meant it. "You see so many faces in the spring break season. They all start to blur."

"I can imagine," Grace remarked, looking around at the large number of people – only a few years younger than her – arriving, departing, or making new friends.

"We need to set up interviews with the rest of your staff as soon as possible," Rossi told her. "And also talk to the hotel guests."

"Of course," she responded at once.

Morgan looked up at the security camera above her and nodded towards it. "How many cameras do you have on the property?"

"Not enough," she said, with open frustration. "We have all the main entrances and the garage covered, but the hallways and the service tunnels aren't equipped."

"I guess people who're here to cut loose and break the rules don't really want to be observed," said Grace, and Julie nodded.

"Can you show us the room where the last body was found?" Rossi requested.

She paled slightly but nodded, and Grace guessed she didn't relish the thought of spending any time in the vicinity of the murder, even if the corpse was long gone by now.

The hotel room was taped off and locked; Julie hovered around the door as they pulled on latex gloves and began reading the myriad behaviours of the room's most recent and unfortunate occupant – and his murderer.

"I'll start rounding up the rest of the staff for you to talk to," she said, looking like she would rather be anywhere else, just now.

"Thanks," said Rossi.

Gratefully, she fled.

"No signs of a struggle were reported," said Rossi, reading from his notepad. "Everything seemed normal when housekeeping arrived."

"So, they tidied up after themselves," Grace commented, opening one of the drawers in the bathroom.

Gods it was good to be back on a crime scene again and not hearing about it all third-hand through a report.

"No, look at this," said Reid, crouching by the bed. He pointed at the bed supports. "Scratch marks on the footboard. The victims were bound before the struggle began."

"Well, that would make sense," Morgan observed. "Both victims were in pretty good shape, probably needed 'em tied up in order to control them."

"Question is, was it consensual or was it coerced?" Rossi posed.

"This was the vic's room, right?" Grace checked, slowly prodding through the toiletries bag she had found.

"Yeah."

"He brought a ton of condoms – and seems to have kept a bunch of empty wrappers." She grimaced at her own reflection in the mirror. "Who does that?"

"Probably kept them as trophies," Morgan shrugged.

Everyone shot him a strange look.

"Hey, _I_ never have," he protested, hands up. "I just know it's a thing some guys do."

"So, he came here looking to party," Rossi inferred, shaking his head a little at Morgan. "That doesn't mean he was down to party with the unsub."

"No, but we know that at some point before encountering the unsub he was definitely looking to score," Reid pointed out.

"Probably already had with –" Grace counted out the empty wrappers, "– six people already."

Reid nodded, looking somewhere between horrified and impressed. "He would have behaved accordingly."

"Guess that speaks to the victimology," Morgan reflected.

"Yeah," said Grace, without enthusiasm. "And means this guy has a time sensitive, but temporarily limitless victim pool."

0o0

The head of the South Padre Island Police Homicide Department was a tall, sharp looking woman, with big, curly brown hair tied back into a ponytail. She gave them an assessing look as they navigated around the front desk, one eyebrow permanently cocked, lending her an eternally slightly sarcastic expression.

"Reese Evans," she said, shaking hands with them all.

"Agent Hotchner. These are agents Prentiss and Jareau."

"Hello," said JJ, with a nod.

"Well, thanks for being here," Evans said, in earnest.

"If it's alright with you, we'd like to talk to the victims' friends and family as soon as possible," Hotch stated in that way he had of subtly directing events: not quite a question, not quite an order.

"Of course," she said at once. "Michael Browder, the father of the first victim, has just arrived to claim his son's body. And the second victim's girlfriend should be here within the hour."

JJ nodded, not looking forward to having to ask the bereaved girlfriend about her boyfriend's sexuality.

"Does Mr Browder know the details of his son's murder?" Emily asked, with unusual care.

"Not everything," Evans admitted. "I mean, there were certain matters I didn't want to bring up on the phone."

"If you don't mind, we'd like to handle that ourselves," said JJ delicately. "We're going to have to ask him a few difficult questions about his son."

"Honestly, I have been dreading it all day," Evans told them, immediately nodding.

"I'll talk to the girlfriend," Emily offered.

0o0

"So, if I'm the unsub and it wasn't consensual, how does this work?" Derek asked, as the four of them prowled around the hotel room.

By now, they had ceased poking through the late Daniel Keller's possessions and had hit the postulating stage. Inevitably, it seemed, every scenario they ran revolved around the bed.

"You'd have to have a weapon," Reid guessed, his arms crossed.

Morgan pulled out his gun, keeping the safety on, and pointed it at an imaginary victim's head.

"A gun to the face means he doesn't scream out," Rossi observed.

"Look at the distance between where each of the arms were tied," Reid said, pointing to the marks on the footboard. "There's no way he's could have tied that second hand himself."

"Which means the unsub did it for him," Rossi inferred.

"Hmm," said Pearce. "No. Trust me – they aren't going to be able to do that one-handed." She lifted her cast, reminding them of her recent life experience. "It's hard enough eating lunch, let alone tying up an athletic young man who doesn't want to be here."

"Yeah," Derek agreed. "If the vic' knew he was in danger and he saw the opportunity, he would take it."

"Why not drug him and then tie him up?" Rossi suggested. "Eliminate the risk?"

"The tox screen came back negative," Morgan reminded him.

"So, it's either consensual, or he has a partner," Reid concluded.

Pearce nodded thoughtfully. "I can think of at least four ways to convince a guy who's into me to let me tie him up – and I'm sure I haven't thought of them all."

Derek looked up just in time to catch Reid staring at her, the corner of his mouth quirked up and an unreadable expression on his face.

"He's also learning fast," said Morgan, amused at him.

"What do you mean?" Rossi asked.

Derek gestured towards the closet. "He hides the body in the closet and then indicates that the guest has checked out, which means when the housekeeper gets here everything looks normal and she starts cleaning, wiping everything down. Erasing any fingerprints or DNA which could have been left on the scene."

"Hell of a forensic countermeasure," Pearce reflected.

Reid was still watching her, not as covertly as the kid probably imagined he was. Derek wondered if he was trying to figure out how she might convince a sexual partner to be tied up.

 _So, Pretty Boy… she has your attention again, does she?_ he thought. _Maybe we should think about re-openin' that bettin' pool…_

"We need to talk to whoever cleaned this room," Rossi decided. "Maybe they saw something that can tell us who was in here with Dan Keller."


	21. Spring Broken

**Essential listening: Blitzkrieg Bop, by Ramones**

 **0o0**

"Adam Jackson?"

They didn't sneak up on him, exactly. The roof was covered with gravel and their feet crunched as they walked, but he was sitting with his back against an air-con vent, smoking something Spencer's mother would have referred to as 'slighty more than herbal'. As he shot to his feet and tried to stub the roll up out, he yanked the earbuds of a pair of headphones out of his ears. Spencer guessed that he wouldn't have heard a thing.

"Your manager said we could find you up here," Morgan told him.

He saw the badge and froze, making renewed attempts at hiding his cigarette. He was a small, slightly scrawny man, approximately five years Spencer's junior. His longish brown hair was unkempt in a way his generally wasn't (though it made him want to run a hand through his own hair, just to make sure). Adam was wearing a t-shirt and work clothes and an expression of deep anxiety.

Spencer frowned minutely. With a different IQ, education and home life, he could have been staring at a smaller, more compact version of himself.

Adam glanced at the cigarette he had instinctively squashed into the gravel. "I get migraines," he blurted out, obviously worried about being arrested for possession.

Morgan ignored the comment. They weren't here about drugs. "You discovered the body last night?"

"Yeah…" He looked even paler than before.

"Had you ever seen him before?" Morgan asked. "Or noticed anyone he may have been with?"

"I'd never seen him before in my life until I opened the closet," said Adam, with agitated certainty, hunkering his shoulders down a little. "Now I can't get him out of my head."

"Adam, what about the first victim, William Browder?" Spencer asked. The kid's frightened eyes fixed on him, instead. "Had you ever seen him before?"

"Never seen either of them," Adam told them, shoving his hands deeply in his pockets.

He was having a hard time meeting their eyes, which seemed like something more than the situation, or just having been caught with drugs.

Spencer recognised deep anxiety when he saw it. "Let me ask you this," he tried, in a milder tone. "Is there anything you remember about the room before you discovered the body? It might not seem like much, but the smallest detail could really help us a lot."

He shrugged. "It looked pretty normal. I mean, until I opened the closet door." His eyes widened a little at the memory and he shuddered.

Spencer felt for him. He hadn't slept properly for nearly a month after seeing his first corpse. It seemed like such a long time ago, now.

"Did anything stand out about the body?" he asked, gently pressing further. "Or for that matter, anyone at the hotel last night?"

Adam gave him a slightly nervous smile. "No, man. You see one drunk frat guy, you've seen them all."

"Adam, I thought you said you didn't recognise him," Morgan reminded him.

"I didn't," he said, the slight smile remaining for a moment – though the more he looked at it the more bitter Spencer thought it was. "I just… I grew up in Corpus Christi, across the bridge. I know the type." He walked a few paces to the edge of the roof and gazed out into the marina, where groups of college boys were strutting around, trying to impress the girls. "They walk around like they own the place, you know? Think they can do whatever they want."

Spencer followed his gaze, feeling a brief, odd surge of fellow feeling. He had been an awkward kid in Vegas; he knew exactly how Adam felt.

"How long have you worked here?" he asked, curious.

"Six months, I guess," Adam told him.

Reid nodded and started moving away, rejecting the urge to tell him to find a place where jocks didn't rule the entire island for two months of the year. "Appreciate your time."

"Thank you," Morgan added.

Adam took a hesitant step after them. "Hey, uh… Can I ask you a question?" he asked Spencer.

"Yeah," Spencer agreed. He glanced at Morgan, who carried on a little way, giving them a bit of space.

Adam bit his lip, looking at Spencer sidelong. "You've seen bad stuff, right?"

"Uh yeah," Spencer replied gravely. "I have, yeah."

 _More than my share, you could say._

"How long before you can close your eyes without it being there?" Adam asked.

 _Oh, man…_

He looked so earnest and frightened and tired. Spencer grimaced, but there was no point lying to the kid. "I'm afraid I still don't know."

They nodded at one another, one resigned; one rather crestfallen, and Spencer left him on the roof.

0o0

He had left Morgan and Reid finishing an interview at the Hudson, and deposited a mildly disgruntled Pearce at the front desk, where she was chafing at the bit because technically she wasn't allowed out on her own without a gun yet. She had headed off to find JJ and see if she needed any help, trying very hard not to grumble.

Prentiss and Aaron were going through the interviews in the small section of the main office that Evans – who had introduced herself to him when he had arrived – had given them to set up shop in.

"Hey. What did you learn?" he asked them.

"It doesn't look like either of our victims was gay," Aaron reported.

"Dan Keller's girlfriend described him as overtly sexual," Prentiss responded, reaching for the picture the woman had given her. "And aggressive towards women. It caused quite a few problems in their relationship. _And_ his friends said they were out partying prior to his death," she quirked her eyebrow and winced; one of her tells. This one meant she found something distasteful. Dave didn't blame her. "And he was definitely willing to overlook the fact that he had a girlfriend."

"Does that match with what you found at the scene?" Aaron inquired.

"Yes and no," Dave admitted.

Prentiss frowned at him. "What do you mean?"

"Yes, in that Keller kept his empty condom wrappers, like some kind of tally," Rossi began.

Even Aaron pulled a face; Prentiss openly gagged.

"Charming," she said.

"The victims were both big guys, yet there was no sign of a struggle," Dave continued. "We profiled it as either being consensual, or that the unsub had a partner."

Aaron narrowed his eyes. "Sounds right. What's your hesitation?"

Glad that his old friend was someone who could tell there was something bugging him, even when he wasn't totally sure of it himself, he gave a twist of his lips and shook his head. "What if it was both?"

"How so?"

"Well, even if he was confronted by two men, the first reaction of an alpha male would be to fight," Dave reasoned.

"But not if it were a woman," said Hotch, seeing where he was going.

"It's spring break," Dave continued, setting the scene. "She lures the victim to her hotel room, ties him up, then once he's subdued, her partner arrives."

"That could explain the posing and the rape," Prentiss realised, surprised. "The victims are alpha males with aggressive sexual tendencies. The unsub treats his victims the way they treat women."

"So, we have a team," said Hotch thoughtfully. "A woman who lures them back to their hotel room and ties them up…"

"And a man who rapes and murders them," Dave finished.

0o0

The evening air was mild, flavoured by the salty tang of the sea and the seaweed. It was the perfect kind of evening for a walk, and Grace had felt rather cooped up in her hotel room, particularly given she wasn't supposed to leave the PD unless under special dispensation. She had slipped down to the bar, unable to shake the slight sensation that she was sneaking out like a teenager behind their parents' backs, and ordered the least garish thing she could find on the menu.

It had still come with an umbrella.

She had found herself a table on the edge of the mix of tables that made up the outdoor bar, her back to the wall of the hotel, and sipped her drink, content to people watch unprofessionally for an hour or two.

This was not to be.

Everybody there was on the hunt, and though they were all several years younger than her, several of the young men and two young women made it their business to detach themselves from their friends and approach her, perhaps seeing a woman drinking alone as an opportunity they couldn't pass up.

Given the age difference and relative inebriation of everyone in the bar (as far as Grace could tell, the ingredients for a spring breaker appeared to be being young, hot, half-naked and quite drunk) the flirting was a mixture of confidence boost and deeply cringe-worthy. Most of them had taken her refusal with the cheerful equanimity of people for whom the night was young and their tribulations few, and had merged back into the crowd looking for someone else to flirt with. The sixth attempt had been made by an enormous boy who must have been on some kind of steroids, or his college's weight lifting team (or both), and when Grace had gently turned him down he had become enraged, smashing her drink to the floor and trying to make a grab for her.

But Grace had seen the slight shift in his expression that indicated trouble before he moved and years of policing had left her with a keen sense for when things were about to kick off. Even one-handed, she had his arm twisted painfully behind him and a knee in the middle of his back in seconds, though she had had to use the Voice to get him to reception with no misadventure.

She had handed him off to security, thinking that the unsubs sort of had a point about toxic masculinity – though obviously, they were taking their retaliation a little far. She might have gone to bed then, her calm a little damaged, but she was prevented.

"Hey!" JJ called, from across the foyer.

Grace turned to find her and Emily lurking by the base of the staircase, dressed as she was in more civilian clothes, both with an air of people sneaking out.

"Are you escaping, too?" Emily asked, with some joy.

"Well, I tried," said Grace, and told them about the towering hulk she had delivered to hotel security.

JJ pulled a face.

"I don't get why some guys think being an asshole is so attractive," Emily griped.

"We were going for a walk along the seafront," JJ told her, in full agreement of her friend's assessment. "Want to come?"

Grace grinned, pleased to find herself with partners in crime. "Absolutely."

0o0

"Your unsubs have changed hotels," Evans remarked, as the ME zipped up the body bag and lifted up their newest victim, ready for transport to the coroner's office.

They were standing in a room at the Willard Beachside Hotel. It was messy, full of empty beer bottles and plastic cups, clothes flung every which way. It had, until recently, been occupied by two college kids whose idea of order was which pizza to get.

The sheets on the bed were dishevelled, which was nothing to do with their untidiness, however, and there were still marks on the bed posts from where the newest victim had been secured.

"What can you tell us?" Rossi asked, notebook out and up.

"The vic's name is Carl Cade," Evans told them. "Another spring breaker."

"Any witnesses?" Morgan asked, standing from his close examination of the foot board.

"Friend saw him leave a party last night with a brunette in a green dress," said Evans, which was more than they had for the other victims. "Both had been drinking for most of the day. He only caught a glimpse of the girl before he left the party, and he found the body posed. Just like the others."

She sighed and left them to it, going to make the thousand and one arrangements that followed the discovery of a corpse.

Leaving the forensic technicians to finish up, the three agents went out onto the balcony, from where they could see the entire marina – and a good portion of their victim pool.

Rossi gave a huff of frustration. They only had one day before all these kids went home – and if the unsubs were among them…

"Sounds like our theory about the partners was right," said Spencer, trying to push them back on track.

Rossi shook his head, but didn't say anything, and Reid guessed he was disappointed that it hadn't been enough to save this victim.

"Woman lures the victim back," said Morgan, as the three of them gazed out on the few spring breakers who had dragged themselves outside this early. "She offers up a little kink, ties him up."

"Only this time, the unsubs ventured outside of the comfort zone. They changed hotels," Rossi observed, tersely.

Morgan exchanged a glance with Spencer behind their friend's head. "Okay, so what's he doin'? Gettin' bolder, or smarter?"

"Well, the local police are on alert, the FBI is here," Spencer pointed out. "They probably changed pattern to avoid getting caught."

Abruptly, Rossi's eyes snapped up from the waterfront below. "Or because they saw us at the other hotel," he exclaimed, and Spencer caught his breath – that had to be it.

And that meant they had already interviewed one or both the unsubs.

"We need to go back to Hudson Street!"

0o0

The men and women of the South Padre Island Police force had gathered in the homicide department to receive the profile and their briefing, notepads and pens at the ready. Because of the time sensitive nature of the problem, Hotch had already brought Reece Evans up to speed on their theory – and what needed to be done. She stood with them at the front of the room, surveying her officers.

"We believe at least one of our unsubs is either a guest at The Hudson Street Hotel, or possibly an employee there," said Hotch. "We have agents and uniforms recanvassing the entire property."

"But we all know kids on spring break," Evans told the assembled ranks. "They migrate from place to place. We can't be sure that the killer's still on site."

"Which is why we need you to circulate this profile," Emily explained.

Hotch took up the thread of the conversation. "We believe we're looking for a dominant – submissive team. A man and a woman, probably in their twenties."

"We are looking for a heterosexual male who most likely is submissive in his everyday life, with everyone except his partner," Emily went on. "To her he becomes dominant."

"His submissive female partner will be socially awkward, of average intelligence and emotionally unstable," Hotch described. "Look for women who are reclusive, have a problem with authority and can't interact with dominant personalities."

"There's likely an aspect of abuse – certainly physical and possibly sexual – in both their pasts," Grace continued. "These kids may have worked with a social worker; they may have been in the system; they may have run away from home. Look for people with a history of offences suggesting past trauma – drug or alcohol abuse, or those who find it hard to keep a steady job for long periods of time."

"This form of male rape is about power and dominance," Emily expanded. "It is not about sexual orientation, so victimology is key. This team targets alpha personality males who think that access to women is their right. Add drugs or alcohol into the equation and now we're dealing with eager victims."

Hotch nodded sternly. "Even with the mention of rape, an alpha personality, fuelled by intoxication, will believe he can control the situation and eventually gain the upper hand."

"These boys are the definition of toxic masculinity," said Grace. "They will consider themselves above risk and assume that any woman they are with would kill to be with them – rather than be with them in order to kill."

Evans stepped forward. "We'll need to blanket the beach with flyers, talk to other hotels and bartenders. We have got two days until the spring break season ends, so let's get to work." She clapped her hands, rounding people up.

"Hey, Hotch?" JJ called, catching the agents' attention over the heads of the disappearing crowd. "I think we got something."

She beckoned them over to her laptop, which was open on the desk that was presently designated as their Command Centre. Garcia gave them a little wave from the depths of her tech lair in Prince William County. Emily smiled slightly. As bad as the cases could be – and this one was far from pleasant – there was something about seeing the mad, colourful woman that made everything marginally easier to cope with.

" _Check this,"_ she said, typing. _"No reported male rape in the area. It's not surprising, since it's one of the least reported crimes on the books. I also looked at video surveillance for the Hudson street hotel on the days of both murders, and zip."_

Emily winced, her improved mood quickly evaporating. "Tell me there is a 'but' coming."

Gratified, Garcia sparkled at them. "But, _I also looked at the days leading up to the murders and – wouldn't you know it – jackpot of jackpots."_

She brought up a video feed for them to see.

Emily leaned forward to get a better look. It was a view of the edge of the pool, where an uncomfortable looking woman wearing the uniform of the Hudson Street Hotel was trying to get out of talking to a classic alpha male. He looked oddly familiar.

"Is that…?" Grace asked, frowning deeply.

" _Yes, my eagle-eyed European sleuth!"_ Garcia declared. _"That would be William Browder, aka victim number one."_

Their interest intensifying, the four agents watched as he grabbed the woman's arm, trying to get her to stay up. It looked like he was holding her hard enough to give her bruises.

" _I would like to call him Jerkface,"_ Garcia continued. _"See him making advances at Damsel in Distress, aka, hotel employee, Madison Cooke."_ Her ID appeared onscreen. _"See Jerkface grab Damsel. See Adam Jackson – let's call him, White Knight – intervene…"_

They watched as a scrawny, scruffy looking janitor tried to get Browder to let Madison go.

" _See Jerkface knock White Knight down…"_

Emily frowned. She was not altogether sad that Browder had been murdered, if he thought behaviour like this was appropriate. Given the manner of his death, she almost felt guilt for thinking it.

" _See White Knight pause…"_

On the tape, Jackson looked up at where Browder still had Cooke in a vice-like grip – then tackled 'Jerkface' into the pool.

" _See White Knight go postal."_

"Whoa," Grace exclaimed.

Emily gasped; JJ's eyebrows shot upwards; Hotch frowned. Well, frowned more.

"Didn't the maintenance man find the second victim?" he asked.

"Yeah." Emily nodded, unease growing in her stomach.

"And he told Reid and Morgan that he'd never met either of the first two victims."

"Uh-huh." Emily replied. "So why lie?"

Hotch pulled out his phone. _"Garcia, I need everything you can find on Adam Jackson,"_ he ordered, before turning away to make the call.

 **0o0**

 **Bit of a heads up and shameless plug – sorry!**

 **If any of you are heading to SFW X up in Sheffield (UK) at the end of the month, I'm on a bunch of author panels, have a couple of signings, a one-to-one author chat and I'm in a parody gameshow. So, if you fancy asking me strange questions, listening to me waffle about fantasy writing, women in independent publishing or switching genres, or want to see me make a fool of myself on stage, come along and say hi!**

 **(Oh, my 'real' name – my pen name at least – is Lauren K. Nixon and is googleable, if that helps!)**

 **I think this run will be done by then, or there may be one more, I forget, but either way there is unlikely to be a chapter that week, for obvious, I'll be running around like a headless pheasant reasons.**

 **Pxx**


	22. Skater of the Surface

**Essential listening: Monster, by Dodie**

 **0o0**

"Rossi says allegedly the manager told Madison and Adam to lie about having the altercation – says she was trying to protect them," Grace reported, coming back over and hanging up her phone. "He said he doesn't buy it, but Madison is adamant. What've you got?"

Garcia, who was on the phone intercom now, as the station Wi-Fi had begun to wobble, sighed. _"Adam Jackson's life reads like a how-to-make-an-unsub manual. Born in Corpus Christi. Biological mother was Rosemary Jackson. In and out of hospitals. Broken arm, broken rib, exhaustion."_

"The polite way of saying spousal abuse," Emily remarked, bitterly.

" _Exactly. And then she died, suddenly, when Adam was five,"_ Garcia continued. _"Father unknown, Adam was left in the custody of his stepfather, Mark Harrison. And then it became Adam who was in and out of the emergency room. He was eventually foster homed in Dallas and he was granted emancipation at the age of sixteen."_

Grace shook her head, disgusted. Abuse was something you came across with depressing regularity as a police officer – and as an agent. It was often difficult to prove – though stricter laws were beginning to change that – and impossible to reverse the damage done. At the BAU they were forever coming in at the end of the knock on effects that kind of continuous and cruel trauma could cause, the darkness in peoples' past moulding them into either victims or perpetrators.

 _Very few people come into this world truly evil,_ Grace thought.

"I would bet you, if we could see Mark Harrison back then, he would bear a striking resemblance to our unsub's victims," Emily commented.

"No bet," said Grace.

"Good work, Garcia," said Hotch. "Keep digging."

0o0

The team watched pensively as Reid escorted a terrified and strung out Adam Jackson to the table in the interview room.

"Doesn't really look like the dominant partner type, does he?" Emily reflected.

Hotch's brow furrowed. "No."

"Madison doesn't strike me as particularly submissive, either," said Grace, who had met her at the hotel the day before. "More sort of average, if anything. Assuming the partner is her."

"Maybe it's not," Rossi suggested. "It was Julie who was trying to protect them when she told them not to mention the fight by the pool."

"He's our guy," said Morgan, with more certainty than Grace felt, gazing through the window into the interview room.

"What makes you so sure?" Emily asked.

"He's a classic profile," said Morgan. "He grows up with an abusive stepfather, somehow manages to escape. Suddenly he finds himself back in the exact same place his abuser lives. He's surrounded by nothin' but a bunch of alpha males that mirror the exact same type of behaviour. He snaps."

Grace nodded, allowing him that. "It makes sense."

"Did he have a problem with you as an authority figure when you interviewed him?" Hotch asked.

Morgan nodded immediately. "He backed away, as if he was a little skittish."

"And Reid?" Emily asked.

"Reid was a little less imposing and he opened up about his life," Morgan told them.

"Would the unsub we're profiling do that?" Grace asked, turning. "I mean, I know it's Reid, and he seems about as threatening as a kitten to us," she added, on their expressions. "But he's still an FBI agent with a gun."

"But not a classic alpha male," Rossi reminded her, then glanced at Morgan. "Sorry, no misogyny implied."

The younger agent waved the inference away.

"I suppose," mused Grace, turning back to the interrogation room to watch.

0o0

Spencer regarded the man across from him closely – he was barely twenty, and his inexperience and extreme social awkwardness showed. He looked terrified, he was sweating, he clenched and unclenched his hands; this was not how Spencer imagined a dominant personality – even one who put on a show of being mild-mannered. The fact he was probably on a bit of a come down from the large amount of marijuana he had been smoking when they'd interviewed him earlier didn't help.

Adam's fear was obvious. He could barely meet Spencer's eyes.

It felt instinctively wrong to be preparing to pressure him into talking, but Spencer had seen people change attitude on a dime in the past, and he wasn't going to let the fact he kind of felt for the kid blind him. Besides, if they were right about the profile, this was a man who had brutally raped, murdered and posed three college kids in the last week. He couldn't afford to underestimate him.

Adam shot him the barest of glances, looking more than a little unfocused. "Where's Julie?" he asked plaintively, almost like a child would.

"We're trying to find her," Reid told him.

"She's gonna go ballistic," Adam said, looking like it was that, more than anything else, he was worried about.

Spencer steeled himself. Adam may appear to be little more than a frightened kid right now, but JJ had filled him in about the way he'd gone nuts at William Browder at the pool, so there was definitely more going on there than Adam was letting on.

"You're in a lot of trouble, Adam," he told him firmly. "I think you know that, right?"

Adam looked, if possible, more frightened than before. He stared at Spencer, doing a very good impression of someone completely baffled by where this conversation was going.

"The – the only thing I did wrong was leaving work without telling my boss…"

 _Right…_ thought Spencer, assessing him.

Adam stared at him in growing horror. "I – I need to talk to Julie," he said, in a desperate voice.

 _Did we get this wrong?_ Spencer wondered. _This is not a dominant personality – is Julie our dominant, here?_

He looked at the agents unobtrusively gathered outside the window, each wearing their own personal brand of unreadable expression.

Emily and Rossi nodded at his signal and peeled away, understanding the increasing urgency of tracking the manager down.

Spencer turned his attention back to the trembling man sitting opposite him. "Adam," he said, unconsciously licking his lips, deciding how to phrase his next words. "Why don't you tell me about the fight you had with the first victim?"

Adam mouthed silently a couple of times, visibly shaking. "I – I –I don't remember."

"You don't remember?" Spencer repeated softly.

Adam was practically crying now, tension and terror coming off him in waves. He was hunching up in the chair, trying to make himself physically smaller.

"Um," he said, thinking hard. "No!"

Spencer leaned forward. "Adam, I _really_ wanna help you out, but you're going to have to do a lot better than that."

"Please," he begged, his voice raised slightly in agitation. "I just need to talk to Julie!"

0o0

"Hotch," said JJ, tearing his attention away from the interrogation room. "I just got off with Garcia."

Aaron and Pearce glanced at Morgan and then joined her a little way away.

"So… Adam Jackson doesn't just work at the hotel, he lives there, too," JJ told them.

"How did that happen?" Pearce asked, surprised.

"When Adam was kicked out of school for bad grades, drug possession and petty theft, he started staying at the hotel," she explained. "Julie Riley pays his bills."

Aaron stared at her for a moment in shock. "The manager?"

"Yeah. She's bailed him out of jail twice in the past four years."

"She also told Madison to lie about the fight with Browder," Pearce noted, frowning.

Aaron nodded, raising an eyebrow. It was certainly suggestive. "What's the connection between Julie and Adam?"

"Uh," JJ began, reaching for a printout. "It turns out when Julie was in college she volunteered at the foster care facility Adam used to reside in, between homes."

The agents walked back to the window, readjusting their mental landscape.

"She befriended him and became a surrogate for the absent mother," Aaron theorised. "And now she's his boss… he owes her everything."

Grace nodded at the interview room. "Jackson's shaking like a leaf in there. What if we have it backwards? What if she's the dominant and he's the submissive?"

 _And she's still out there,_ Aaron thought darkly.

0o0

Rossi and Prentiss had tracked Riley down in a bar on the waterfront, dancing with a guy who was probably a little unhappy about the way his night had ended. Not nearly as upset as he could have been, reflected Grace, watching Spencer and Jackson through the glass.

He had built a strong rapport with the kid, and though he was still claiming confusion about literally everything, he was still talking to him at least.

"Adam, let's talk about the fight you had with the first victim, William Browder," Spencer suggested.

He calmer now, and he didn't panic or try to obfuscate like he had before. "There's nothing to tell. He grabbed Madison and I tried to stop him."

Spencer raised his eyebrows. "That guy was pretty big," he said.

Grace smiled slightly.

 _You would have done the same, if you saw someone in trouble,_ she thought. _No matter the beating you thought you'd get._

 _And you know it._

As if he had heard her thoughts, Spencer's eyes briefly flicked up and met hers, taking her momentarily by surprise.

"So?" Adam asked, looking up at him.

Returning his attention to the interview, Reid's mouth twisted into a self-deprecating smile. "Adam, guys like you and I aren't exactly the fighting type."

Adam shrugged, returning his gaze to his hands as Reid circled him, putting him off his guard.

"Well, Madison's a good person," he said. "She didn't deserve to be treated like that."

Spencer stopped behind him, leaning against the wall in Adam's blind spot, purposefully putting him at a disadvantage. It was the kind of thing that made interviewees nervous – and it was definitely working on Adam.

"See, now I'm really confused," the young doctor told him. "'Cause you just told me you don't remember the fight."

"I don't," said Adam. "I don't. I mean, I do…" he tapped his hand on the table, distracted.

"You don't, but you do?" Reid echoed. "Can – can you explain to me how that works?"

Adam bit his lip and it seemed to Grace that he was genuinely trying to remember. To think through the memories in his head and explain.

"I remember he grabbed Madison. I tried to stop him," he said, with a hint of a deeper fear – one that had nothing to do with interview rooms and mild-mannered FBI agents.

Something darker and more horrifying – to Adam at least. Grace couldn't begin to fathom what that might be.

He looked up at Reid, anxious. "Next thing I knew, Julie was pulling me out of the pool."

0o0

They'd put Julie in the staff room, where she could feel less like she was being interrogated as a main suspect and more someone 'helping with their enquiries'.

Aaron watched the woman out of the corner of his eye. She was outwardly calm, but worried underneath. She lit a cigarette.

"Why did you tell your employees to lie to my agents?" he asked her.

If she was the dominant here, there was no point beating around the bush.

She gave a light shrug. "Adam has a record, he found one of the bodies. I didn't want you to take the easy way out and pin the murders on him."

"Why do you look out for him?" Aaron pressed. "Why did you bail him out of jail? Pay his rent and all of his bills?"

She looked at her knees for a moment and when she met Aaron's gaze her expression was of someone who didn't – given the present circumstances – expect her to understand. "He's had a rough life."

 _She's cool as a cucumber,_ he thought. _Time to put on a little pressure._

"And do you take advantage of that?"

"No."

There was no hesitation there, and a mild amount of offence.

"Safe to say he'd kill for you?"

"No!" she cried – with a lot more offence, that time, Aaron noted.

"Then explain it to me," he offered. "What exactly is the relationship?"

She tried to stare him down, then, which was never going to work.

0o0

"Tell me about Julie," Spencer instructed.

He had backed off a little in an attempt to give Adam a bit of space. They already had something of a rapport – they might as well take advantage of that. He'd let him smoke, too, which had calmed him down somewhat. Spencer wondered whether he was experiencing one of the migraines he had mentioned on the roof earlier.

"We've been friends since I was just a little kid," he said, wandering around the table disconsolately. It wasn't even pacing, just a listless sort of amble.

Spencer nodded speculatively. "Are you lovers?"

"No," said Adam, poking at a paint chip on the wall.

"Well, why does she pay for everything you have?" Spencer asked, not unreasonably.

Adam looked embarrassed. "It's not like it's a hand out – it's… I'm working at the hotel so I can pay her back."

Spencer pursed his lips for a moment, weighing his options. "Does she pay for the drugs, also?"

Adam's eyes flicked up to his, and for a while he held Spencer's gaze with unusual intensity. "I told you. I – I get migraines."

"So… take a prescription," Spencer suggested, not unkindly.

Adam continued to stare at him. It was a little unsettling. He looked afraid again – and something else, maybe. Offended? Betrayed?

"I thought you were different," he said, upset.

Spencer frowned. "What does that mean?"

The other man didn't answer, only finally breaking eye contact when he could no longer bear it.

 _What are you hiding?_

0o0

Faced with two intransigent suspects and a shrinking window of opportunity, the team had decided to administer polygraph tests. They weren't perfect – and they weren't admissible in court – but they were a reliable, swift method of ruling people out.

Waiting for the results at the table in the office, Reid was watching the video of the pool altercation over and over with a pensive expression on his face. Grace was reading statements over and over, in case they had missed anything, preparing the case against Riley and Jackson.

"Hey, what are you looking at?" JJ asked, as she, Emily and Morgan came over.

"I'm not sure," Reid admitted, frowning at the screen.

"They both passed," JJ told them, with the air of someone delivering bad news.

Both Reid and Grace looked up, surprised.

"How is that possible?" Reid asked, taking the readout from Emily's unresisting fingers.

Grace got up to crane over Morgan's shoulder at the other one.

"Not only that, but they passed with flying colours." Emily scowled, taking it all with remarkably poor grace.

Grace shook her head and sighed. "Well, I guess we were wrong."

 _The profile doesn't feel wrong, though,_ she thought.

"Only spike I got on Adam was a control question regarding geometric equations," Morgan grumbled, tossing the results on the table. "Honestly, I think I just flustered him. Either way, we got nothing."

"Back to the drawing board," said Grace, disappointed. She was about to return to her statements when she caught sight of Reid, watching something happening behind her and Morgan with a slight frown on his face; not wanting to disturb anything, she glanced at the window to her right. In its reflection, she could see Julie Riley and Adam Jackson signing themselves out and their belongings back over.

Morgan went to get a coffee, grumbling to himself. She didn't blame him. It felt like they were having to start over

Reid's frown intensified.

"What?" she asked, as their two best suspects walked out of the building.

"I don't know," he said, slowly.

"They beat the polygraph," she reminded him.

"I know, but there's just – there's just something… It's – it's right on the tip of my brain, but I just can't reach it." He rubbed a hand over his face, frustrated.

"You'll get it," she reassured him.

He looked at her as if he was about to argue for a moment, but nodded instead. "There's just something bothering me about the way Adam responded just then." He sighed.

"Body language?" Grace asked. They were too far away to have heard anything less than raised voices and the reception had been particularly quiet just as Jackson and Riley were leaving.

"Yeah…" He frowned again. "No. Maybe? Ugh, I don't know!"

Smiling slightly in deep empathy, she patted his shoulder. She had been where he was right now many, many times before.

"The more you try to force it, the less likely it is to clarify itself. Keep at whatever you were doing that sparked it," she encouraged. "It'll come to you."

Reid sighed, nodded again, and settled back at the computer.

Grace returned to her statements with one eye on her friend. There was definitely something ticking over in his head right now. She could almost hear the finely tuned cogs in his brain whirring.

"Thanks," he said, after a minute or two, and she raised her eyes from the files to find him offering her a small smile.

He looked extremely handsome, with that purple shirt and dark grey waistcoat, and slightly dishevelled hair. The colour in his cheeks was up a little from pure frustration, which didn't help, and she was hard pressed not to match it slightly as she gave him a small smile in return.

 _Stop it,_ she thought. _You're not some lovesick schoolgirl. And you know how badly it ended last time. And he's not interested._

 _But he did bring you that ambiguous cup of tea,_ part of her mind she wasn't particularly fond of reminded her.

 _A peace offering – a gesture of friendship,_ she assured herself. _Nothing more._

Reading anything else into it would be silly – and dangerous for their freshly repaired friendship.

She shook her head at herself and made herself read through the next statement, hoping he had been too distracted to notice her blush.

One by one the rest of the team trickled back to the table, half of them deeply annoyed that they had been so off with the profile, the other half deeply annoyed because they were almost sure they weren't wrong at all.

"So, where are we?" Morgan asked, when they were all seated.

"Nowhere at all," said Rossi, disgruntled. "We just watched our two most viable suspects walk out the door."

"If Adam isn't our unsub he has all the makings to become one, someday," Emily reflected.

Like Grace, Hotch was watching Reid, who was still frowning contemplatively at the laptop, watching the CCTV clip on loop, looking troubled.

"Tell me again the question that he spiked under in the polygraph," said Reid, glancing up.

"It was a control question to set the baseline," Morgan told him.

"It was a geometric equation?" Reid queried.

"Reid, I really think he was just intimidated," Morgan admitted. "He tried, he got it wrong. But he wasn't supposed to know the answer, anyway."

Grace narrowed her eyes at Spencer, leaning forward. He had found the thread that had been worrying him and had started to pull it.

"What if he lied?" he put to the group. "What if – what if he knew the answer to the question, but intentionally got it wrong?"

JJ frowned at her friend. "Why would he do that?"

"Because he realised that he wouldn't know that answer," Reid said, thinking aloud.

"Eh?" Grace asked, not following him.

"You're losin' me kid," said Morgan, which was a minor boost to Grace's self-esteem.

"Adam said he wasn't getting any rest," Reid explained. "Takes midday naps because he's always exhausted. He has a history of blackouts, reclusive behaviour, long periods of abuse, suffered at the hands of a dominant male, who transferred abuse from his female spouse to his pre-pubescent child."

"You think Adam is taking on some feminine gender attributes?" Grace asked.

"No, not exactly." Reid licked his lips. "More than that."

"Where are you going with this?" Hotch asked, puzzled.

"What if the unsub couple isn't a couple at all?" the young agent proposed.

Hotch raised an eyebrow; unconsciously, across the table, Grace mirrored it.

"Dissociative identity disorder," Hotch said, glancing at Rossi, who had studied it in the eighties.

Rossi leaned in, giving Reid a hard look. "You think Adam's a multiple personality?"

"Well, it fits," Emily observed. "Recurrent physical abuse, knowledge he shouldn't have…"

"The migraines, the blackouts – the exhaustion," Grace agreed, mildly excited in the creepy scientist way the team sometimes had when they found something unusual as well as grim.

"We've seen this before," said Emily darkly.

That brought Grace up short. "Have we?" she asked.

She wracked her brain for anything they had faced involving multiple personalities, but nothing came to mind.

"Look at this," Reid interrupted, ignoring her with the enthusiasm of someone who thinks they are on the right track, turning the laptop around so they could see. "The first intervention is timid. It's apprehensive, right? Then, he gets knocked down, there's a moment of calm – and then his entire body language changes. I saw the exact same transformation when he left the station. Only it wasn't rage, it was – uh…" He frowned. "Uh, arrogance. Like the alter ego wanted me to know."

"Why?" Hotch asked.

"I don't know! Power? Control? All I know is that the person that stared me down over there was not Adam. He's not assertive like that. He doesn't make eye contact."

"So, you think the stress of the interrogation blurred the line between Adam and his alter personality?" asked JJ, still a little nonplussed.

"I think the unsub surfaced for just a moment," Reid clarified. "It knew the answer to the question, realised Adam wouldn't and lied."

"So, Adam is the woman in the green dress," Grace realised. "The profile was accurate, it's just the second personality is internal instead of a separate person."

She shook her head, wondering at it all.

"That means Adam has no idea he killed all those people," Emily mused.

"You could argue Adam didn't kill those people," Reid told her. "A separate person inside of him did."

"I don't even know what we do with this," Morgan said, looking flummoxed.

Hotch got to his feet, signalling the others following suit. "We take him into custody and let the courts decide."

"Er…" said Grace, thinking out loud. "What happens if Adam figures it out?"

"Well, in theory the dominant personality might take over," Hotch theorised.

"It would be a moment of intense stress," Rossi agreed.

"Then anyone around him is in danger," said Grace. "They don't know there's a serial killer in there. They just think he's sweet, awkward, mild-mannered Adam, who never argues or looks them in the eye."

Hotch nodded. "We need to find him – and fast."

She was already rising as the others did, until she remembered her wrist was still in plaster and she was effectively still grounded.

 _Bugger._

"Suddenly," said Grace, to no one in particular as her team pulled on flak jackets and plugged in their radios, "I understand how Garcia feels."


	23. Amanda

**Essential listening: Waves (Acoustic), by Dean Lewis**

 **0o0**

The Subarus screeched to a halt at the front of The Hudson Street Hotel, scattering guests, and the team (minus Grace, whose wrist was still in plaster) piled out and hurried into the foyer.

Spencer swept a practiced eye over the crowd. Jackson was nowhere to be seen, but then none of them had really expected him to be out in the open. If it the other one was in control, rather than Adam, however, amongst the milling college kids would be exactly the kind of place she might try to conceal herself.

He couldn't see her, either.

Spencer bit his lip. He couldn't help feeling that this was all going to go horribly badly. If Adam didn't know what was going on, their arrival might tip him over the edge and force the alter to the surface – and she would likely be vicious and uncompromising, based on her behaviour thus far. If she was already at the helm, as it were, she might pilot Adam into a situation they couldn't get out of without blood being spilled.

And Spencer really didn't want that.

The more he had spoken to Adam, the more he had felt for him. Not only had he been the same level of socially awkward through his teens and early twenties (he had his BAU family to thank for that diminishing), but he knew exactly what it was to be afraid of one's own mind. And he thought Adam might suspect what was happening to him, given how afraid he had been in the interview room when he had admitted that he couldn't remember the fight with Browder.

The guy didn't have anyone in his corner except for Julie, and she probably couldn't begin to fathom what was happening to her friend.

 _And then there was Tobias…_

The frown he was wearing deepened, as it always did when he thought of him.

Hotch's order snapped him out of his reverie. "Reid, Morgan, take the roof!"

He didn't waste any time waiting, taking off with that strange mix of FBI haste and scuttling speed towards the stairs. Behind them, he heard Rossi and JJ shout that they had Adam's room as they hurried towards the elevators.

All of them turned back on a dime, however, on hearing Evans shout from outside, "Agent Hotchner! Out the back!"

Immediately contracting back into a cohesive unit, they ran towards her and out into the garden of the hotel.

"I think, I –" she said, a few paces ahead of them, and then slipped into full police mode as she saw the crowd of people milling around. "Just back up! Back up!"

As he caught sight of what the crowd of scantily clad but unusually subdued spring breakers were clustered around, Spencer felt his blood grow cold.

 _Oh, no._

Julie Riley was lying prone on the ground, bleeding profusely from what looked like basically everywhere.

The team sprang into action, checking their weapons. Rossi, JJ and Evans moved people back, while Morgan and Prentiss went immediately to Julie's side to provide what aid they could. One of the well-meaning bystanders had covered her with a beach towel and bunched up another under her head. Blood oozed freely from her mouth, nose, head and extremities, staining the towels and the grass beneath her.

 _He must have thrown her off the roof,_ Spencer realised, looking up as Hotch called for an ambulance on his radio. _She. She must have…_

"We're at The Hudson Street Hotel, send medics as soon as possible!"

"Julie," Prentiss called. "Julie can you hear me?"

The woman on the ground was panicking and going into shock; her voice was tremulous and thick with blood that even now was likely to be filling her lungs, but she grasped Prentiss's arm urgently. "A-a-adam!" she managed to say. "It was – Adam." She started to sob, which wasn't a good thing for her breathing.

Prentiss laid a comforting hand on her head. "Alright. Look, help is on the way, I just need you not to move."

Julie screwed her eyes shut against the pain, but in a reprieve from the coughing she said, "It wasn't – it wasn't him. It was s-strange…"

"Julie," Hotch asked gently. "Did he say where he was going?"

But she didn't seem to have registered the question. "He called himself – Amanda," she said, between gasps of breath that gurgled unpleasantly.

"The alter personality," Spencer realised.

"Reid, you were right," said Morgan, with contained urgency. "Where would he go?"

Spencer looked up at the roof he – _she_ – must have thrown Julie Riley off. He cursed his own stupidity.

"Not he, _she_ ," he said aloud. _God, I am so blind!_ he chided himself mentally. "She panicked. She knew that we would link this to her."

"Okay, okay," Morgan prompted. "So she's feelin' the pressure, she obviously knows she's runnin' out of time. Where would she go?"

Flashes of the tiny, frigid, foul-smelling cabin filled his mind – the swinging light; the pain; the terror; the Dilaudid-induced haze that was almost blissful compared to the dark, icy, agonising reality. The ravings of three mad men, trapped in one body. Being held by the throat. Falling to the floor; the tight, panicked pain of his Dilaudid-flooded system shutting down. The darkness – and then the light. And then the darkness all over again.

He could even taste the foul smelling fish innards the living ghost of Hankel's father had burned on the stove.

Unexpectedly, it was Gideon's voice he heard in the back of his mind, steadying him, bringing him back to the moment; to the task at hand.

 _Use it,_ he thought, in his mentor's brusque tones. _Let it make you a better profiler._

So thinking, he turned and frowned. "She's gonna go after the man these victims represent."

Morgan pulled out his cell. "Garcia, please tell me you know about the whereabouts of Mark Harrison," he asked, as soon she picked up.

Spencer was close enough that he could hear her response:

" _The skeezy, wife-beating, child-abusing scumbag never left Corpus Christi. Sending his address to your PDA."_

Morgan closed his flip phone with a snap and shot Prentiss a questioning look.

"Go," she said at once.

"Medics!" Hotch yelled, as Spencer and Morgan ran for the cars, picking up JJ, Rossi and Evans on the way.

0o0

They didn't waste any time. They burst into the house as fast as they were able, clearing the kitchen and lounge and swiftly identifying the sounds of distress coming from the kitchen.

Adam – Amanda – had their stepfather kneeling on the bed, a plastic bag over his head and cruel looking knife to his throat.

Spencer put up an arm as they flowed into the room, surrounding them. "Amanda!"

"Stay back!" she said, staring wildly at them all.

"Put the knife down!" Morgan insisted, but Amanda was having none of it.

"Stay back or I'll kill him!"

"You do not wanna do that," Spencer argued urgently.

Amanda levelled on him such a look of hatred and pain, he almost took a step back. "You don't know what he did!" she cried, voice laced with venom.

She wasn't going to listen to the others, that much was clear; it was up to him. Spencer swallowed and then put his gun away, trusting the others to have his back as they always did. Again, fleetingly, he thought of Gideon. How many times had he done this, over that long, unforgiving career?

How often had it worked?

"When Adam's mother died, his step-father needed a new outlet for his aggression, didn't he," he said, as calmly as he could, trying to keep the anger he felt for the abuser slowly suffocating on the bed out of his voice.

Amanda stared at him for a moment. "He put Adam in women's dresses!" she spat. "He beat him. _He touched him!"_

Like before, it seemed like it was Spencer in particular she needed to talk to. Maybe because Adam hadn't seen him as a threat.

 _Fine,_ he thought. _If I can talk her down, maybe we can save Adam from her._

"Adam was too weak to go through all of that alone, right? He was just a little boy. He needed you – to protect him."

Something in her eyes changed at that; a memory of the pain, perhaps.

"I could take it," she said softly, still keeping the knife at Harrison's throat. "I was stronger than he was." Abruptly, she remembered that her captor was there, at her mercy. "And he deserved to die!"

Spencer glanced at Harrison, who was gaping wide-eyed at him in desperate, horrible hope.

 _Yes,_ he thought. _But you don't get to decide that. None of us do. Not outside a court of law._

 _And especially when you're not the only one wearing that body._

"Amanda! Amanda!" he said, aware of the hint of desperation creeping into his voice. "That's not for you to decide." He raised his hands, begging with her to see reason. "I swear to God that if you put him down and you come with me, I will get you _and_ Adam the help that you guys need."

She stared into the middle distance, biting her lip. The choke hold on Harrison hadn't loosened one iota and he was going a horrible shade of tomato red. His eyes fluttered closed.

 _Please work! Please work! Please work! Please work!_ Spencer thought, over and over, willing it to come to pass like you would a spell.

Then h thought: _If Grace ever finds out I thought this, I will never hear the end of it._

There were a horrible few seconds of almost silence – only the sounds of Amanda's ragged breathing and Harrison's fading gasps and moans filled the small room.

Then she met Spencer eyes and he knew – _he knew_ – he had lost her. He had lost them both.

"Adam will be sentenced for what I've done," she said, as his heart constricted. "You know I can't let that happen."

She shoved Harrison and pushed him over. He was more or less unconscious now anyway and his face tipped forward against the front of the bag; Amanda still held the other side of it tight in her fist, not relinquishing her grip for a second. She raised the knife to her and Adam's throat with deliberate care.

 _No, no, no, no!_ "No! don't!" Spencer pleaded. Thinking fast, he added, "If you kill yourself, you kill Adam! I don't see how that's protecting him – and you know what I know? I know that all you wanna do in this world is protect him!"

"It's all I've ever done," she exclaimed, in a strangled, miserable voice.

 _Yes,_ he thought, _listen –_

"Then, why don't you and I help him together?" Spencer offered softly.

"You can't help him," she said sadly – and for a moment she looked at him like she was sorry for him. Like he could never understand what it took to keep her alter ego safe. But that on some level she appreciated the care in the offer. Then the arrogance returned in full force. She shook her head. "I'm the only one. I know what I have to do. I will keep him safe, forever."

Amanda dropped her hand away, kicking Harrison in the back so he fell off the bed and dropping the knife.

Rossi and JJ plunged towards him, dragging the bag off his head and pulling him clear, while Morgan put his gun away and cuffed Amanda.

Throughout all of this, not for one second did she break eye contact, daring him to keep looking, to keep searching for what she knew he would never find.

"Adam?" Spencer asked, afraid of the answer he would get. "Adam? Adam?"

She just kept staring at him with those unsettling green eyes.

"Reid. Reid, he's gone," Morgan told him.

She looked past him then, into the mirror behind him. He followed her gaze and watched as she became transfixed, wholly, by her own image.

0o0

Derek walked up the stairs to the roof of The Hudson Street Hotel, wondering what he could say to make the kid feel better.

The rest of the team had said goodbye to Evans and her people, and half of them had already headed to the airstrip, but Reid was nowhere to be found. Derek had seen his face in that takedown; he had looked particularly crestfallen when Amanda had subsumed Adam entirely.

Pearce and JJ had come with him in the SUV, but both had let him seek Reid out on his own, having a hunch this one was going to be rough on him. They had all sensed it, but none of them said anything. It was simply how their team cared for one another. He had left them sitting on a bench on the waterfront, JJ using the time to check in with Will and Henry; Pearce just leaning back and soaking up some of the lingering heat of the evening.

Hell, she probably needed it, after what she had been through.

He found Reid, as he thought he would, standing on the roof of the hotel, where Adam had always felt safest. His back was to the door, but he saw from the way the kid's shoulders tightened that he knew Derek was there. He didn't turn though; he just kept staring out across the bay, his hands shoved deeply into his pockets.

"Hey, kid. Time to go." When he didn't respond, Derek tried again. "Reid. What's eatin' you, man?"

The kid sighed. "We've taken the victim into custody and let the abuser go free. I don't really… I don't see that as much of a 'win'."

Derek grimaced. He kinda had a point. Still, "A lotta lives are gonna be saved now that Amanda's off the street. You know that."

He nodded, but he still didn't turn. "Yeah…I just…" he paused, and Derek wondered if this was all he would get. The kid could be exceptionally stubborn about what he did or didn't share sometimes. Eventually, though, he continued. "I just wish I could've… recognised the signs. In time to save Adam."

"C'mon, don't do that to yourself," Derek admonished. "None of us could've noticed. Our profile was right. We just never considered that the team dynamic could be locked inside of one person's mind."

Then Reid said the thing that was ultimately bothering him. " _I_ should've."

He looked away, out across the water.

Derek frowned and took a few steps closer. "Talk to me. What is this?"

Reluctantly, Reid turned to face him at last. He looked deeply uncomfortable and very troubled. "Tobias Hankel," he said, at length.

Derek's brow furrowed even more deeply.

 _No. No way,_ he thought. He _wasn't a victim._ "Tobias Hankel drugged and tortured you for two days. Almost killed you," he reminded him gently, but Reid shook his head, that immovable firmness setting in around his eyes that he sometimes got when he knew he was right about something, beyond all reason.

"No, he didn't," he said, more calmly than Derek had ever thought they would ever be able to discuss the time they had all thought the kid wouldn't be coming back. "The alter persona of his father did those things to me. The real Tobias Hankel saved my life. Brought me back from the dead."

Derek took his shades off, shocked. "And you think because of Tobias you somehow owe Adam?" he inferred.

Reid swallowed. "I just I know that he's still locked in there somewhere."

He turned back to the marina, looking like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Derek put his sunglasses back on, choosing his next words carefully. "Kid," he began, and Spencer half-turned towards him to listen. "You're gonna have to accept the fact that we can't save everybody."

His friend didn't answer, so he turned and walked back inside, trusting Reid to follow in a couple of minutes and suspecting that – like Derek himself – that was something he would never, ever take entirely to heart.

0o0

 _Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes they win._

 _Stephen King_

0o0

Spencer stared at his book, not really taking it in, a frown knotting his brow.

The jet was quiet. Most of the others were dozing over their reports (except for Emily, who had given up entirely and got a pillow out of the overhead cupboard in the kitchenette and gone straight to sleep), though he could hear the slight buzz of Rossi's music coming from the headphones that had fallen off his head about twenty minutes before.

JJ was still awake, tirelessly sorting through a stack of files – presumably deciding wherever they were heading next – and so was Grace. The latter was slowly manoeuvring around the kitchenette, her actions rendered twice as slow now she could only use one hand.

Derek had been right, of course. You couldn't win them all – and to believe that you could would only lead to madness.

But the truth was, he could have saved Adam if only he hadn't been so blind to the signs.

He had failed, and nothing anyone said was going to make him feel better.

A mug of tea was set carefully on the table in front of him.

Surprised, Spencer looked up to find Grace – who had evidently been carefully balancing two cups of tea in one hand and a book under her arm – taking the seat opposite him.

He glanced at the cup and swallowed.

He had left her the tea on her desk because he'd wanted her to know that he was done being immature, or keeping her at arm's length. They might both be remarkably stupid sometimes, for two very smart people, but nearly losing her had thrown one thing into sharp relief: he didn't want to do without her.

Even if, by rights, he really shouldn't feel that way.

Was this a reply?

Settling into her seat, she met his gaze. _Your move,_ her eyes seemed to say.

Spencer looked away, feeling that perhaps he had just been checkmated at his own game. He frowned down into his book as she spread hers on the table, unable to hold that and her own cup at the same time. She had put the sling back on this evening; perhaps her arm was getting tired.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked softly, startling him out of his thoughts, after a few minutes of silence had passed.

His eyes flicked up to meet hers. She was watching him quietly, paying no heed at all to the book in front of her.

"No, I – there's nothing to talk about," he lied, and almost winced. She could always tell when he was lying. "I'm fine."

For a moment, she almost looked like she felt a little sorry for him, in a fond sort of way. It wasn't a pleasant sensation. Delicately, and with a slight air of apology, she leaned across the little table and plucked the book out of his hands. He had been about to snap at her, when she turned it the other way up and gently returned it to him.

Spencer glowered at it. He hadn't even noticed it was upside down. Closing it with a snap, he laid it on the table and picked up the tea instead, embarrassed.

"Well, the offer's there, if you change your mind," she said, and turned her attention to the pages on the table.

It looked like she was reading another of the Regency romances she was weirdly fond of. He didn't entirely understand it, though the one she had read snatches of to him – many, many months before – had had a lot more cross-dressing and swordplay than he had been expecting, and had been extremely funny.

He took a sip of the tea, for something to do.

Peppermint. _Her favourite._

Without looking up, she expressed more or less the same sentiments that Derek had, back on the rooftop in South Padre.

"But I _should_ have spotted it," he griped, angry at himself. "I saw it in Hankel – I half knew it in the interrogation room when Adam talked about having blackouts. Sometimes I can almost see it in… in me!" He faltered, surprised that he had let that last comment slip out.

It had been bothering him for hours, though he had had no intention of saying it out loud. It was as if giving it shape with his voice gave the fear a power it hadn't previously possessed. His heart briefly constricted and he clung to the more certain, less frightening failing; the one that had made him truly angry.

"I'm – I'm a profiler. I should have seen it."

The tight feeling in his chest eased a little as she took his hand with her uninjured one.

"Sometimes you just don't, love," she told him kindly. "We're not superheroes." Her expression changed and she looked beyond him for a moment, into the middle distance. "Although, Hotch in a cape…"

She was trying to make him laugh, Spencer knew, to distract him – but although the side of his mouth did slant upwards slightly at the image, he kept on, doggedly.

"But a profiler _should_ ," he insisted, intractably. "That's what we spend our whole lives training for! To not see it –" He huffed. "Either that makes me a bad profiler, or just blind to the obvious."

Grace shook her head again, looking unaccountably sad.

"A good profiler should always see it," he repeated, though the expression on her face confused him a little.

"Not always," she said softly, and there was something about her face and voice as she said it that made him feel distinctly ill-at-ease.

She retracted her hand and he missed the warmth of it immediately.

Spencer watched her from beneath his eyelashes as she sat back and sipped her tea, something uneasy stirring in his chest.

 _Where did that come from?_ he wondered.

He was about to ask her about it when JJ joined their table.

"Mind if I sit with you guys?" she asked. "The others are all asleep and I need help on my crossword.

"Sure," said Grace, brightly – too brightly?

Spencer inclined his head, glancing back at Grace, who held his gaze for a moment before looking away and turning her attention to the puzzle JJ was worrying at.

He stayed quiet. The others often complained if he tried to 'help' them with puzzles anyway, usually because he could tell them all the answers without giving them a thought. But right now, he was caught up on another enigma: he was one hundred percent certain Grace was hiding something.

But what?

Across the table, she said something that made JJ laugh, the corner of her own mouth quirking up in answer to it. He was aware, however, that although she wasn't looking at him, Grace was conscious of the way he was watching her – which meant that she was worried about something. Or rather, about him noticing something. Spencer bit his lip.

 _I thought I knew all your secrets…_

 **0o0**

 **Well, on that somewhat sombre, ominous note, another ficisode draws to a close.**

 **As ever, immense thanks to all the readers and reviewers – you know who you are, my dear hearts** **You help to make this ongoing saga what it is!**

 **You can find more of my writing, if you're bored, on Amazon or through my book of the face, tube of the you, insta ham and twitter accounts, all of which are under some variation of Lauren K Nixon. I have a new book out in the next couple of weeks, called Mayflies. It's short and sweet and a bit emotionally brutal, so fair warning! xD**

 **I'm up at SFW next weekend and in London the weekend after that, so I should be back with the next ficisode,** _ **The Song of the Sharks**_ **, on Friday the 12** **th** **of April.**

 **Thanks for sticking around!**

 **Parlanchina xx**


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